Bowling into the U19 Cricket World Cup
Second year medicine student, Ruaridh McIntrye represented Scotland in the Under-19 Cricket World Cup this year! Below is a retrospective piece of him highlighting his career in Cricket and experience at the World Cup.
I have been in the Scotland U-19 squad for three years now and this was my second World Cup, the first being in the West Indies during my sixth year at high school. That World Cup was very different as there were still plenty of COVID restrictions, but nonetheless taught me things that I wanted to bring into this new squad in South Africa. Being a senior player definitely comes with new opportunities and roles, it was the first time I’d ever done an interview with TV cameras being thrust in my face!
Since coming to St Andrews, I’ve been involved with the Cricket Club, playing Varsity in the September of my first year and then the BUCS matches in the May. Unfortunately, I got a stress fracture in my back during the summer which meant I couldn’t play the indoor season last semester. I had to follow my rehabilitation programme before returning to training with the team. The trainings I had with the boys were brilliant and they were a massive help in my return to cricket, so a huge shout out to USTACC for that!
I’m a second-year medicine student, so I had to make sure I was getting my work done whilst I was away, thankfully with everything being published online this wasn’t too difficult to keep up. I’m incredibly thankful to the School of Medicine and the Principal’s Office for supporting me in taking time away from St Andrews, and I’m pleased with the compromise I struck to ensure I could have this amazing experience whilst continuing my studies.
It is an absolute honour to represent your country at a world cup, getting to walk out onto the pitch with your name and number on your back and sing the national anthem is incredibly special and memorable. It’s made more special when you’re playing against big cricketing nations like England, West Indies and the hosts, South Africa. It was gutting to fall short in these games, but the lads went on to beat Namibia in the final game of the tournament. Unfortunately, I had already flown home to come back to St Andrews so missed out on this win.
I would urge anyone playing performance sport to keep going alongside their studies. Opportunities like this don’t come around very often so if you can, work with the university to try and facilitate taking time off. It has definitely been a challenge balancing sport and studies but, once you strike a healthy balance, it can be so fruitful and rewarding, as I have found over the 18 months of being here. It will be good to link up again with the 1s team here and I am looking forward to getting stuck into this seasons BUCS games towards the end of term.
Representing your nation is a proud moment indeed, and huge congratulations to Ruaridh for this amazing achievement!