Exclusive: Grant Morgan Praises Scotland’s Grit as T20 World Cup Win Over Italy Signals Continued Rise

Former Scotland Assistant coach, Grant Morgan, praised the resilient nature of the Scotland men’s national team, following their continued progress on the world stage as they beat Italy by a mammoth 73 runs during the 2026 ICC T20 World Cup at Eden Gardens in Kolkata on Monday.

Resilience

For about a year, Grant Morgan served as the Assistant coach to the then-head coach of Scotland, Shane Burger. 

During his time with Scotland, Morgan identified the resilient nature of the team, as they overcame many hurdles, including the climate, which is mostly not conducive to cricket.

However, the team is able to get prepared enough to compete at the highest level. On February 9th, Scotland beat Italy by 73 runs to register their 8th victory in T20 World Cups.

The victory marked the team’s continued progress, having had victories against Bangladesh and the West Indies in the previous editions of the tournament.

In an exclusive interview with SportsBoom.co.uk, Morgan praised the Scotland national team for their resilience and determination to get better as a team.

“What stood out for me was their resilience. The fact that they don’t always have the facilities and the weather doesn’t always allow them to practise,” Morgan told SportsBoom.co.uk. 

“The biggest highlight for me was their ability to make the best of what they’ve got and turn things that could be deemed to be negative by other places and make them positive.”

Stalwarts - Berrington & Watt

The name Richie Berrington can’t not be mentioned when a conversation about Scottish cricket arises. The captain, Berrington, has a career that spans almost two decades, and has played over a century of T20Is and ODIs as well.

Through all the highs and the lows of the team, Berrington has been there. Even when the International Cricket Council called on them to replace Bangladesh at the ongoing T20 World Cup in India and Sri Lanka, Berrington packed his bags, prepared his team, and flew to India to represent his country.

During their first game of the tournament, Berrington led them to a sparkling victory over Italy, a feat that paints a vivid picture of just how good a leader Berrington is for Scotland.

Morgan highlighted Berrington’s longevity as a key factor to his success at the highest level.

“Richard Barrington used to be more of an all-round cricketer. Obviously, his primary skill is his great ability with a bat, and he's batted in many different positions for Scotland, I suppose mainly in the middle order,” Morgan reflected.

“But now Richard's ability to maintain his fitness and to reinvent his game in a way demands respect because as the game’s changed, he's also had to evolve with it as a batsman and adapt his ability to keep pace with the international game." 

“Being a powerful guy, he's always been able to hit the ball hard and do that, but that's also not easy as you get older and the game's demands are big. Running between the wickets, fitness, those are all things that a middle-order batsman needs to have to be able to execute his role, and Richie's developed that in a brilliant way over the years, and he stayed very relevant." 

“He's always been someone I've targeted from a point of view of just someone who you want in your team with the right attitude, skill set, fielding, bowling, batting and leadership. He’s just an absolute boss, one of the great cricketers of associate level and truly one of the really great guys in cricket and a relevant guy.”

Fitness

Morgan emphasised that during his time with the Scotland national team, they put emphasis on fitness culture as they challenged the players and the structure to adopt a new approach in terms of how they viewed the importance of fitness as a professional cricketer.

Morgan and Burger felt that it was of utmost importance to put emphasis on fitness as the Scotland cricket team had ambitions of being a full member of the ICC and graduating from being an associate.

“When I got there, there was a big emphasis on fitness. We also wanted to get our teams to be more focused in terms of dealing with the different facets of the game in T20 and 50-over cricket. Also, keeping pace with the requirements of the game at the international level. We didn't want to just be falling behind,” Morgan said.

“We wanted to challenge. So, you know, we wanted to get the guys in positions, challenge them so that a guy like George Munsey would bat up the order instead of sitting down the order in 50-over cricket and challenge people to try to take them out of their comfort zone to do different things.”

Scotland top-order batter George Munsey starred with a 54-ball 84 during their victory over Italy, while spinner Michael Leask walked away with the player of the match award with sparkling figures of 4/17 in his four overs during the match.