Ailsa Lister played for Scotland's international cricket team in the Commonwealth Games qualifiers in Malaysia and could feature in the World T20 Cup play-offs for a place in South Africa next year
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HUNTLY cricketer Ailsa Lister played for Scotland against some of the world’s top players during the Commonwealth Games qualifiers in Malaysia.
The 17-year-old Moray College student’s rising reputation in her sport continued when she was selected for all four of Scotland’s “Wildcats” team in the effort to reach this year’s Birmingham Games.
The Scots came up just short, defeating the host nation and Kenya but losing to Sri Lanka and Bangladesh, whose players are on professional contracts.
“I was fortunate to play in all our games and that was a great experience,” said Lister, who plays club cricket for Stoneywood Dyce after learning the game at home town Huntly.
“It was a great learning opportunity to play against Sri Lanka and Bangladesh specifically, as they are ranked seventh and eighth in the world and they are two fully professional teams, compared with us who are students and working people.
“Even though we lost to both of them, we believed going into the tournament that we could compete against them and we didn’t quite get over the line or play our best but it showed that we are narrowing the margins between us and the professional teams.”
Covid restrictions meant that the Scotland selectors didn’t announce their squad publicly until the day before they flew out to Kuala Lumpur, in case the trip was cancelled.
It took a total of 26 hours of travel time between Edinburgh and their Kuala Lumpur hotel, and quarantine rules then meant every player being confined to their hotel room for a week.
"We had three meals a day in our rooms and it was weird having Zoom calls with people who were in the room next to you just to keep everyone going.
"There was an eight-hour time difference between there and back home so you couldn’t keep yourself occupied speaking to people at home because they were sleeping for most of our day."
When the games got going, Scotland were defeated by 129 runs by Sri Lanka before comfortably seeing off Malaysia and Kenya, but a nine-wicket loss to Bangladesh in intense heat and humidity ended any hopes of qualification.
“I’ve not quite got the scores that I would like yet but I’m just trying to learn with each opportunity I get and try to enjoy the experience,” she said.
“We don’t often get to play against these teams like Sri Lanka and Bangladesh.
“When a couple of their batters came out I just thought ‘crikey, these girls are good’. We took it all on board and took on the challenge, tried to enjoy the experience of challenging ourselves against some of the best players in the world.
“All things considered, I am happy with how the trip went overall.
Last year Lister helped Scotland win all four matches in a World Cup qualifying event in Spain, and she is awaiting a date and venue for this summer’s play-offs where two countries win a place in the World T20 finals in South Africa in 2023.
“I hope that I will be involved in the play-offs. I want to develop different aspects of my game.
“I am playing at an international level but I still consider myself as developing and not there yet. If I can develop more and just see these trips as a learning opportunity rather than focus on the results, I feel it will help me in the future.
"I wasn’t expecting to play all the games but we were quite unfortunate with injuries while we were away.
"Coming from off-season and not having the same prep as we would have liked whereas when we went to Spain we came off the back of a season and had been playing three games a week and doing cricket-specific stuff.
"We had been doing a lot of fitness and training over this winter but it is not the same as match situations so we had a few injuries and it was a shame that some of the girls missed out.
"It was also a shock to everyone’s system in January coming from zero degrees in Scotland to 32 or 33 degrees out there.
"There was about 90 per cent humidity some days so it was very different and hard to adjust."
This month the team parted company with Kiwi coach Mark Coles, who had been separated from his family in New Zealand and Australia during his year in the job.
Lister believes the Scotland team became stronger under Coles' leadership and is awaiting the appointment of the next person to guide the team into an important year.
She hopes she can help her country qualify for the South Africa event for the sake of more experienced players who have missed out in the past.
"I’ve only been involved recently and this year is my first world cup qualifier.
"But it seems like the girls have been getting closer and closer to qualifying and some are reaching the end of their careers. So it would be nice if we could finally get there after all this hard work.
"It does feel like we are making huge strides."
It will be a busy year for the teenager, who is studying an HNC in Soft Tissue Therapy at Moray College in Elgin with the aim of doing physiotherapy at university in the near future, and combining her education with her blossoming cricket career.
