Cricket Scotland today announced that Durham Captain and England’s most capped ODI cricketer and captain of the 2010 World T20 winning England side, Paul Collingwood will join the Scotland coaching team this winter.
The Scotland squad will embark on two world cup qualifying campaigns between now and February 2014. The qualifier for the 2014 T20 World Cup takes place in the UAE in November with the qualifier for the 2015 Cricket World Cup taking place in New Zealand in January 2014. Collingwood will play a full part in both the preparation and competition phases of the winter programme.
Collingwood, fresh from captaining Durham to the LV = County Championship title, will work alongside the existing coaching team of Head Coach Peter Steindl and fielding coach/performance analyst Toby Bailey. In addition to Collingwood, Craig Wright, the current Under 19 coach and former Scotland captain, will also form part of the new coaching team as bowling coach.
Commenting on the changes to the coaching team, Head Coach Peter Steindl was enthused by the challenges ahead and the prospect of working with Collingwood, ‘’Leading into two vital qualifying events, I was very keen to change things up a bit, add a couple of new voices to the coaching team and bring in coaches who had attained success at the very highest levels of the game.
Paul has been part of successful teams as a player and a captain and it will be great to have his experience and knowledge on board. We identified Paul as a person we were very keen to secure and I am delighted he agreed to join us for the winter. I am sure he will be a hugely positive influence on the squad as we head into some really important cricket.’’
Paul Collingwood is enthused by the challenges ahead, commenting ‘‘I am very excited at the prospect of working with the Scotland squad over the coming months and look forward to helping the team qualify for both the T20 World Cup and the 2015 Cricket World Cup.’’