Big picture: Auld Enemies, New Frontiers
England and Scotland's sporting rivalry famously began at the Kennington Oval way back in 1870, with a series of unofficial football contests that gave rise - one year later - to the world's first rugby international, at Raeburn Place in Edinburgh, and then to the first (Association) football international, at Hamilton Crescent in Glasgow in 1872.
And yet, it's taken a wee while longer for that neighbourly dispute to come to fruition in the third of Great Britain's Big Three team sports. England and Scotland did not get round to an official ODI until 2008 (fittingly, the contest was a dank washout), and now it has required a trek across the Atlantic - to the Kensington Oval in Barbados, no less - for the two teams to be unleashed in the sport's most zeitgeisty format.
Far from being trendsetters on the cricket front, England and Scotland's meeting in the group stages of the T20 World Cup 2024 will be the 2637th in the format's history, and just their sixth in total, after five previous ODIs up to and including a particularly notable result six years ago (more of which later). USA and Canada, by contrast, who renewed their own 180-year rivalry in the tournament opener in Dallas at the weekend, have faced each other the same number of times in 2024 alone.
On paper, it's an unequal contest. For the second time in the space of eight months, England are defending a global title, but unlike the confused ciphers who endured a six-week humiliation at the ODI World Cup in October and November, Jos Buttler's T20 outfit looks fit and firing despite a frustrating experience during their warm-up series against Pakistan.
Buttler himself is back to his forceful best, having decluttered his game at the IPL withsome help from the Rajasthan Royals batting coach, and found in Phil Salt the perfect foil at the top of the order, with his Jason Roy-like ability to go hard from the very first ball. Jofra Archer's successful return from injury gives depth and edge to an impressively multi-faceted attack, featuring three contrasting spinners and the left-arm angles of Reece Topley. Forewarned ought to be forearmed when it comes to this latest title defence. The fact that it can scarcely go worse than the ODI version ought to be a liberating factor.
And yet… as England's muddied oafs of yesteryear know all too well from a history of intermittent but wildly acclaimed setbacks, there's no situation that leans more perfectly into Scotland's self-image as the aggrieved underdog than a self-confident England strutting inevitably towards another glory.
This trait was even witnessed in their most recent cricketing clash in June 2018 - at the very moment that England were arguably at their absolute zenith as a 50-over force. History tends to relate how Eoin Morgan's men went a full nine ODI series without defeat en route to lifting the 2019 title. That tidy stat overlooks one colossal one-off at the Grange, however, where Calum MacLeod's superb 140 not out from 94 balls hoisted Scotland to a hefty 371 for 5 in their only encounter of the year - a target that proved thrillingly out of reach in scenes reminiscent of the climax of Terminator 2.
Seven of the Scotland players remain in the squad this time around, though sadly not MacLeod, who retired abruptly after the last T20 World Cup in 2022. But in his absence, they romped into the 2024 event with six wins out of six in the regional qualifiers in Edinburgh, including a table-topping clincher against Ireland in their final game. And, as if they needed any extra incentive against Proud Joseph's Army, a glance at England's T20 World Cup record against European nations makes for some very inspirational reading.
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