AITKEN-DRUMMOND LOOKING TO MAKE AN IMPACT

After a winter of early mornings and long days honing her game, Abbi Aitken-Drummond is looking to reap the rewards of her hard work at the ICC Women's Cricket World Cup Qualifier.

 

The T20 World Cup in October last year brought mixed emotions for Aitken-Drummond, but she is confident that she can make a positive impact for her team in Pakistan.

 

"At the World Cup, I was delighted to be there, but obviously personally disappointed to not get an opportunity," said Aitken-Drummond.

 

“I had some good conversations about what I needed to work on over the winter, and over the last few months it's been about putting that into practice, and there’s been a lot of hard work, and some early mornings.

 

"One of the advantages of being in Scotland is being able to work with Craig (Wallace) a lot - although he’s probably sick of the sight of me by now!

 

“It's certainly been a winter that's allowed me to feel a lot more confident about where my game is at than in previous years, so I’m feeling in a really good place, and hopefully I can convert that into runs for the team.”

 

With much of the last 12 months spent focusing on T20 cricket, leading up to that World Cup in the UAE, the shift to 50-over cricket and qualifying for an eight-team Cricket World Cup has provided a new challenge for Scotland.

 

“Moving from T20 to 50-over cricket is never easy, and we know we don’t play enough of it as a team, so we probably are a bit more familiar with our T20 game, but we know we’ve got 15 great cricketers who can come together and put in special performances, which is really exciting.

 

“The coaching staff have done a lot of work on putting our game plans together, and their communication has been really good, making everything simple, so that everyone knows their role and what they need to bring to the game.

 

 

“It’s slightly different to previous qualifiers with it being a round robin, and not having that do or die knockout game, but there’s still little margin for error when it’s just a six-team event.

 

“Most of us here are used to this type of cricket where every game is a must win, so we're certainly going to use that to our advantage. We know what it means to be at it every game, with no room for error, so I think we're just really looking forward to it."

 

That challenge begins tomorrow morning, as Scotland take on the West Indies in Lahore, a side they have faced four times over the last six months.

 

"It's a team that we know quite well now, we've got a lot of information on their players, but at the same time, they've still got some world class players in their squad.

 

"They're one of the favourites to qualify, for a reason, but there's nothing there that's going to surprise us, we've been given all the information we possibly could.

 

"Now it's just up to us to go out and back our skills and believe that if we play the best cricket that we can, we can get a positive result."

 

Scotland take on the West Indies at 0530 UK time on Wednesday morning, live on icc.tv.