Chris Sole out to emulate dad David and make World Cup to 'have own stories to tell'
- Published
Chris Sole believes "it's an advantage" to be playing the West Indies and Zimbabwe before the qualifier tournament
Chris Sole hopes to emulate his father by reaching a World Cup so he can have his "own stories to tell".
David Sole went to two Rugby World Cups and now his son is trying to reach cricket's equivalent.
On Tuesday, Scotland play the West Indies in their first warm-up for the World Cup Qualifier tournament.
"It almost brings an extra bit of competition. One thing in the back of my mind is trying to beat him on caps by the time I retire," said the bowler.
"I certainly have heard stories in the past of how much he enjoyed these kind of competitions, so I'll just try to do the same myself so I have my own stories to tell in the future."
Two teams will progress from the 10-nation event in Zimbabwe (18 June-9 July), with Scotland starting in Group B along with Oman, United Arab Emirates and Test nations Ireland and Sri Lanka. The top three from two sections then go into a Super Six stage.
The Scots open against Ireland on 21 June as they bid to reach the World Cup in India in October and end an eight-year absence from the tournament.
"It would be very highly regarded if we were able to qualify from this one, just because of the fixture list and teams we'll be up against," the 29-year-old Sole said.
"It's a massive first game to go into. It's not one you can ease your way into. You've got to be hitting the mark from ball one and everyone's aware of that.
"We're constantly pushing each other and the standards in every session to make sure we're at that match intensity from the first ball bowled or faced.
"This format almost suits us, I feel. All our tours are really condensed with back-to-back games, so we're pretty well conditioned to this format.
"Ultimately, every game we play, there's something on the line, so hopefully that plays into our wheelhouse because I know some of the other bigger teams won't be used to this style of tournament.
"We've never really had the opportunity to go back-to-back, playing these Test nations and beating them consistently. We're usually very good at hitting the ground running and finding the pace of the wickets, so if we do that and manage to beat a few teams off the mark, we'll start the tournament strong and it's about maintaining the momentum from there."
On playing the West Indies and Thursday's opponents Zimbabwe prior to the qualifier, Sole commented: "It's an advantage to be playing against high-class opposition, who'll push us and make sure we're measuring our standards against the right things.
"Getting to play the home nation is a massive advantage from a warm-up perspective because we'll be able to see how they're playing in the local conditions and learn very quickly from that."