Doug Watson: Scotland are excited to test themselves on T20 world stage

Doug Watson feels his Scotland squad are ready to make their presence felt at the T20 World Cup.

The Scots will finalise their preparations for the tournament with warm-up matches in Trinidad against Uganda on Thursday and Afghanistan on Friday before travelling to the West Indies ahead of their opener against England on Tuesday.

Head coach Watson, whose side are also in a group with Australia, Oman and Namibia, believes they are equipped to ruffle some feathers and get through to the knockout phase.

“Yes, we definitely are,” he said. “The Oman and Namibia games can’t be taken lightly. They are two tough teams, really experienced, and they’ve grown over the last couple of years.

“And playing England and Australia is an incredible opportunity. We’re coming off the back of (last summer’s ODI World Cup) qualifying campaign in Zimbabwe where we got past West Indies and Zimbabwe and that’s put us in a position where we’re pretty confident and looking forward to the opportunity of facing these guys.

“Every tournament we play, we want to win every game. But we just need to dial it back and make sure we are focusing on every moment of every game and not looking too far ahead. We also need to make sure we enjoy every moment.”

Watson admits he and his team are excited about the upcoming tournament. The head coach has enjoyed the rare opportunity to have his squad together for a sustained period of time in recent weeks, with the Scots playing a couple of warm-up matches in the Netherlands last week before travelling to the Caribbean.

“They all live in different places so they come from far and wide but when the group gets together and we head off to another country, they are all excited,” said Watson.

“They’re all good mates and they all have each other’s backs. The players see it as a wonderful opportunity for themselves and the team to do well.”