Summer is here, and the international cricket season starts for England’s new regime with Macclesfield lad Peter Moores, taking charge as coach for the second time. This potential banana skin game against Scotland is probably not the game that he would have chosen to take on, especially with the memories of the winter still fresh in the mind.

However, with his captain Alastair Cook they are certainly preparing for this game in the right way. A special two day training camp has been organized prior to today’s fixture and the line up is the strongest sent north of the border since the days of Flodden and Bannockburn. After the last T20 match in India, a defeat against Holland and the failure in Australia, England will be hoping to get the season off to a positive start.

England’s captain admits that they will be under pressure as Scotalnd are in a position where there is no pressure on them, and that they have some talent in the team, but that England will be backing their own ability. The players that were in the game against Holland certainly won’t want to go through that type of experience again, and will want to play at the top of their game to cement their own place in the new set-up.

Scotland Captain Kyle Coetzer will of course be looking to giving England a good game, and will point out that they have been playing some excellent cricket, especially with the bat over the last year and a half. They will be trying to put the English players under pressure and bring back the bad memories of the winter and join the club of smaller teams that have beaten England.

Coetzer himself is no minor player, having recently been signed by Northampton to captain their T20 Blast title defence. He actually averages around the eighty mark at today’s venue but as England are keen to point out no one of the caliber of Jimmy Anderson has bowled at this ground in a very long time.

So this should be a very interesting game for both sides, and with being played at the most northerly international cricket venue in the world, even in May it may be a case of wearing your Surridge Mens Fleece lines sweater to keep the chills at bay whether you are on the field on in the stands.