Scotland aim for consistency

Scotland captain Gordon Drummond has said his side is aiming for consistency in results when they take on five other Associate and Affiliate sides in the ICC World Cricket League Division 1 in Netherlands between July 1 and 10. They have retained only Gordon Goudie, Majid Haq and Neil McCallum from the side that participated last year in South Africa.

"The target we have set for ourselves in the forthcoming event is to be as consistent as possible, day after day," Drummond said. "We want to win every game as there is no point in winning one game and then being routed in the next. We realise that we are nearing the end of our rebuilding phase and most of the players are now pretty used to playing at this level. They know what sort of pressure there is at this stage and what they need to do to be at the top of their games."

Scotland travelled to Deventer last week where they played a first-class ICC Intercontinental 2009-10 match against the Netherlands, which was followed by an ODI. Scotland won the four-dayer by four wickets but lost the ODI by six.

"Even though we'll not be playing at the same ground, I don't think the Netherlands will now be an alien place for some of our players as the tour will have given them some indication of the conditions they're likely to face," Drummond said. "It's always handy to have first-hand information and I think we have managed to collect some valuable data."

Drummond said Ireland and Afghanistan would start as tournament favourites. "While I think every team will have an equal chance to win the tournament, Ireland and Afghanistan will start off as favourites due to their recent results.

"Ireland is the benchmark for the Associate Member countries while Afghanistan has recently played some very exciting cricket. Both the sides played in the ICC World Twenty20 in the West Indies which should give them a lot of heart too. There's no doubt that we're disappointed at missing out on the ICC World Twenty20 2010 and the ICC Cricket World Cup 2011.

"Every player wants to be part of global events of those magnitude and we're no different. The experience of playing in those events would have helped in our development. However, we now have to ensure that we qualify for the next global events by doing well in the qualifying events whenever and wherever they are staged."

Squad: Gordon Drummond (capt), Richie Berrington, Ewan Chalmers, Josh Davey, Gordon Goudie, Majid Haq, Omer Hussain, Neil Laidlaw, Douglas Lockhart, Ross Lyons, Neil McCallum, Gregor Maiden, Preston Mommsen, Matthew Parker, Fraser Watts