SHANE BURGER will take his leave shortly at the end of a four-year tenure as Scotland head coach that has never been dull. Appointed in early 2019 to succeed Grant Bradburn who had masterminded the famous win over England the previous summer, Burger’s time in charge has taken in a global pandemic, two T20 World Cup appearances, and wins over full members Bangladesh, Zimbabwe, Ireland and West Indies. Some of that was also achieved to the backdrop of one of the most seismic events to have hit Scottish sport for decades in the form of last year’s damning investigation into Cricket Scotland that found it to be institutionally flawed and racist.
Burger announced his squad yesterday for the forthcoming World Cricket League 2 series in Nepal after which he will head off for a new challenge as assistant coach and lead batting coach at Somerset CCC. He does so proud of what has been achieved over the past four years and optimistic that whoever follows him will start from a strong position.
“I leave at the end of February/beginning of March and that will be almost exactly four years to the day since I started,” said the South African. “I came into an environment that had been left in a pretty good place by the previous coach. The team had just beaten England and was poised to try to get their full membership status in the next 12 to 24 months. We were progressing nicely. And then Covid hit and that was a major spanner in the works.
