ICC T20 WORLD CUP 2022

October 19, 2022

Richie Berrington

Bellerive Oval

Scotland

Post Match Media Conference

Ireland - 180/4, Scotland - 176/5

THE MODERATOR: Good afternoon, everybody. Thank you for joining us for this press conference today. We've got Richie Berrington today at the top table.

Q. Did you feel halfway that you had enough?

RICHIE BERRINGTON: Yeah, I think we felt after seeing the other day it was definitely going to be a competitive score. I think potentially we feel we could have got a few more towards the back end. But definitely with the runs on the board that we had, we felt if we bowled well and executed well, it should be enough.

Q. They were 61/4 after 10.3 overs. Obviously that was a very good partnership from the two guys out there. Was that a case of two guys just having great days and batting out of their skin, or were there areas there that you thought you could have executed better?

RICHIE BERRINGTON: Look, I think through large parts of that game we executed really well, and we were ahead for a lot of the game. There will definitely be a couple of areas where we know we can improve, but you have to give a lot of credit to George Dockrell and Curtis Campher for the partnership they put on. It was a match-winning partnership.

Q. That over where I think... how many did he hit? I think the 13th over where Mark disappeared a little bit. Was that where the game for you turned on its head?

RICHIE BERRINGTON: I think obviously there's a little momentum shift there, and we knew they were obviously going to keep trying to go towards the shorter side. Obviously it was a big over in the game.

We still felt we were in the game all the way through if we managed to pick up a couple of wickets. Unfortunately, we didn't manage to do that, and they played exceptionally well.

Q. You get the benefit of performing so well on Monday, it feels a bit of a shock now given the partnership, but you're still in a reasonably good position I heading into Friday?

RICHIE BERRINGTON: Absolutely. We have to move on from this game. Obviously learn what we can from it, but we know in these group scenarios it's never sort of straightforward. So we'll reflect well on this and come back strong again on Friday.

Q. Just on the bowling towards the end, your spinners won you the game the other day. The seamers... is it just not finding, or being consistent with their lengths, do you think?

RICHIE BERRINGTON: As I said, there will certainly be a couple areas that we'll look at to see where we didn't execute as well as we can. But again I think you have to give credit to the way they played. They made it really hard for the guys to bowl at them. It's the way they changed the field.

As I said, we will look at areas we can improve and do better. There's always things you can improve on.

Q. Is there a bit of a psychological blow in the sense that you thought you effectively had one foot in the Super 12s, ten overs in after that performance against the West Indies. How tricky or how difficult is it mentally to be up for the third game especially after you thought you were through today with those ten overs.

RICHIE BERRINGTON: As I said before, we know how tough these group stages are. We experienced it last year. We knew we had to win all three games. We were never of the mindset the job was done.

Like I said, it was pleasing we dominated a lot of the game. Unfortunately we didn't manage to go over the line today. We knew it was always going to come down to the last game as well, whether we won today or not.

Our focus is very much on moving on from here and putting in a strong performance on Friday.

Q. Just sort of talking about a few positives you guys had. Obviously the batting went really well for you guys. You set two totals of 160-plus now in this tournament, but Zimbabwe will probably come into the last game with a good pace of bowling. How have you rated your batting so far in terms of facing different types of bowling and different conditions so far?

RICHIE BERRINGTON: I think generally it's been really good. We have two guys at the top who had really good knocks with Michael Jones today, I thought was exceptional all the way through his innings and the way he finished off. So I think that's really exciting to see.

Yeah, I think a positive is we know there's still more to come, particularly from the lower order and towards the back end. Hopefully come Friday, if we manage to find that department, we can keep getting better and better.

Q. Just looking at where Campher is today, he's always been strong with his sweeps, his reverses, his paddles. Do you think maybe looking back at it now, you look at that -- I'm sure it was something you were aware of going into the game -- maybe you would attack him a little bit more in seam and pace early on in the innings instead of that turning point off Mark.

RICHIE BERRINGTON: Potentially we've seen how effective our spinners can be, and we put a lot of trust in our guys to bowl in certain phases of the game. Obviously you have to adapt to what's in front of you, but there's two guys out there. We've got bowler, and there was another man at the other end as well.

Of course you've got to try and make those decisions. As I said, we'll certainly reflect on it and see if there are areas we can maybe do slightly differently.

Q. Can I just ask you a little bit about Scotland's position in relation to Ireland? They play a lot more cricket than you guys between World Cups. I know you only have two T20s between the last one and this one. Is that maybe the difference between teams that have a lot of opportunities and resources and teams that don't, or is it something that you guys don't look at at all?

RICHIE BERRINGTON: Well, certainly not in the game today. That wasn't sort of our mindset. I think we showed that with the intent we had throughout the game. As I said, we dominated a lot of that game.

Of course we want to play as much cricket as we can. No doubt the more opportunity you get as a team, you're only going to get better.

Q. And does that make this kind of qualification or first round process all the more pressured? Because I suppose you know there's these three matches and they're all kind of must win. How do you go about planning the mindset for this week of cricket?

RICHIE BERRINGTON: Look, it's always tough, as I said before, in these group stages. But we've experienced it with a lot of the cricket we play. A lot of the games we play, there's always a lot on the line. Even in the one day cricket we play, you're trying to qualify for World Cups.

So we're used to being in those kinds of pressure scenarios, and we also had the experience of this last year as well.

THE MODERATOR: Thank you very much, everyone, for joining us.