A teenage cricket prospect from Fife headed off this week on a World Cup adventure.
Ryan Brown of Largo, who recently turned 19, is one of the key players in the Scotland under-19 squad.
The party set off to Sri Lanka yesterday for a couple of warm-up matches and then they will head to Bangladesh for the main 50-over event on January 20.
There they will play Group A matches against Namibia (January 29), Bangladesh (January 31) and South Africa (February 2).
Spin bowler Brown, who now plays his club cricket for CSL Eastern Premiership side Heriot’s, originally started playing in the garden with his brother and then headed down to local club Largo to play in the junior teams.
“At first I just enjoyed playing with my friends, but soon cricket began to take up a lot of my time during the summer and I started to focus on it more,” Brown said.
“I loved my time at Largo, but as I was progressing with the Scotland age-grade sides a couple of years ago I felt I had to move to Heriot’s to get some experience in the top league.
“I’ve been playing for the Scotland age-grade sides since I was 15 with quite a few of the lads in our under-19s squad so there’s about six or seven of us that have been playing together in Scotland teams through the years, progressing to the stage we are at now.”
Brown, who attended St Leonards School in St Andrews and who has recently been working at the Old Course Hotel in the town, was on top form during last summer’s qualifiers for the World Cup which were held in Jersey.
He was consistent throughout the event when they played the hosts, Ireland and the Netherlands twice.
Scotland went into their last match against Ireland needing a big win to progress and they did just that, in part thanks to Brown’s three wickets.
“To go on and defeat Ireland in the fashion that we did was incredible. It has given us all belief and we definitely believe we can cause a few problems to the bigger teams in our group at the World Cup,” Brown said.
“As a team we all get on really well and that helped us get the win against Ireland. We have a good time out in the field even if things aren’t going our way.
“The coaches Gordon Drummond and Cedric English have been amazing over the past year, they are very experienced and are good at passing that knowledge on.
“It’s going to be a difficult time at the World Cup, playing against some top quality sides and in some heat, but we are ready for it.”