Scotland captain: more three-day cricket will benefit development

The Intercontinental Cup is important to Scotland along with all the other ICC events as we aim to push our case as one of the strongest Associate Member countries. With the competition being three-day games I think this gives a good reflection of the strengths of the teams which can sometimes be masked in one-day cricket. We have played some of our best cricket this season in the ICC Intercontinental Cup and it would be a fantastic achievement for us to become the inaugural winners of this competition.

I am not sure if playing only two three-day games (excluding finals) each season is enough to make any noticeable difference to playing standards, but I agree totally with the principle and if we were able to play more three-day cricket not only at senior level but at age-group level I am sure this would have a beneficial impact on the development of players.

The tactics differ greatly and as captain it is great to be able to have a bit more scope to improvise in the three-day matches as opposed to the one-dayers which can become a bit formulaic at times.

I played two-day matches at U/16 age group level against Wales and England Schools around about 1990. I was considered more of a batsman in that team and don't think I bowled in either of the two games but I think I managed to get a few runs.

The highlight of the qualifying matches on a personal level making my highest score for Scotland, 88 not out against Holland. From an overall perspective the performance of the team - and Asim Butt and Fraser Watts in particular - against Ireland in the other match was something special.

Our strengths as a team are that we have very good depth in our batting and our bowling unit usually performs consistently well. The team contains a great deal of experience and most of the players have played at national team level for several years. We are also able for this tournament to field several contracted county players which obviously adds to the quality and experience of the rest of the squad.

We have videos of the opposition teams, but this has been made slightly irrelevant by the fact that Kenya have only named a couple of the players who feature in the footage that we have. Having said this, as always we will focus mainly on our own performance and given the quality and experience in our squad we expect to play some good cricket.

Click back tomorrow for an interview with United Arab Emirates captain Mohammad Tauqir

The ICC Intercontinental Cup is a new tournament for ICC Associate Member countries, and sees the introduction of a first-class competition for 12 countries below Test match level.

Canada, Kenya, Scotland and UAE will do battle for the first ever ICC Intercontinental Cup trophy from 17-23 November.

The four winners of the regional qualifying events will play in semi-finals from 17-19 November with Kenya taking on Scotland at Abu Dhabi while Canada will play UAE at Sharjah. The winners will meet in the final at Sharjah from 21-23 November.

With innovative playing conditions including a points system specifically created for the event, the ICC Intercontinental Cup gives players the chance to develop their skills in the longer version of the game, and assist in the progression to the next level of competition.

The ICC Intercontinental Cup is part of the High Performance arm of the ICC Development Program, launched in 1997 to develop cricket as a global sport.

Since its inception, the ICC Development Program has helped the number of ICC members increase by over 40 in the past seven years. The ICC now has 92 member countries; 10 Full, 27 Associate and 55 Affiliate members.

For scorecards, statistics, rules and reports on the ICC Intercontinental Cup 2004 visit www.icc-intercontinentalcup.com.