Scotland’s left-arm spinner says he is provided footage that helps him understand the “strengths and weaknesses” of each batter
Matt Roller18-Oct-20220:49
Watt: ‘Though we beat WI we haven’t played our best cricket yet’
Mark Watt, by his own admission, is “not a massive turner of the ball”. But Scotland’s left-arm spinner is an earlier contender to become the 2022 T20 World Cup’s cult hero, thanks in part to the crumpled sheet of A5 notepaper that he pulled out of his pocket during his spell of 3 for 12 against West Indies.Before each game, Watt sits down to go through the footage and information he is sent by his team’s analyst in detail, preparing a “cheat sheet” with a few key nuggets to remember about each batter. Ahead of the World Cup, he has been working with Scotland’s analyst George McNiel, who spent the 2022 season with Warwickshire.”He’ll provide all the footage, the strengths and weaknesses of each batter,” Watt explained. “And I’ll take it upon myself to look at all the videos and try to think about where I want to bowl, what plans I want to go with, [and] what fields I want to set. It’s quite a tedious process, but it’s something that I feel like I have to do so I know what each batter does.”Related
Report: Scotland bowlers script huge upset against West Indies
Munsey, Watt have a bash as a Scottish fairytale is scripted in Hobart
On Monday night in Hobart, Watt studied his notes at the top of his mark before bowling his trademark “24-yarder” to Brandon King, a ball which he delivers from behind the bowling crease to disrupt batters’ rhythm. The ball skidded into the top of King’s off stump, giving Watt the first of his three wickets in a miserly four-over spell as Scotland turned the screw.”It makes it all worth it,” Watt said of King’s dismissal. “At the time, it can be quite boring – and it’s quite tough looking at players hitting sixes out of the ground against left-arm spin. But it’s something that I have to do, and something that I’ll keep on doing.”Watt’s regular glances at his notes may also help him glean a psychological advantage. In the 2006 FIFA World Cup, Germany’s goalkeeper Jens Lehmann pulled a similar crib sheet out of his sock which featured notes on Argentina’s likely penalty-takers during a shoot-out, which he studied closely when midfielder Esteban Cambiasso walked up to take his kick.”Lehmann could find no indication on his note of how Cambiasso would shoot,” Sönke Wortmann, a director who was making a fly-on-the-wall documentary about the German team, recalled in the book . “And yet the piece of paper did its job because Lehmann stood looking at it for a long time.” Lehmann saved Cambiasso’s penalty, and the crib sheet was later sold for €1 million.Watt’s cheat sheet is unlikely to fetch a similar sum, but he too is focused on outwitting opposition players. “I’ll always try and keep the batter guessing as much as possible with all the variations that I use,” he said. “Sometimes I don’t even know what I’m going to bowl next ball; if I [myself] don’t, the batters definitely won’t know.”