Contemporary match reports to 1950 now online

The internet is a fantastic way to make information available which might otherwise take months or years for anyone else to assemble. And this is demonstrated once again by the latest addition to the increasingly-comprehensive international match archives of Cricket Scotland.

Following considerable detective work by a small group of enthusiasts, the archives for most matches up to 1950 now include an online copy of the contemporary match reports carried by the Scotsman.

Surfers interested in reading about matches from the past can go to the Cricket Scotland website at any time, click on the 'Stats' menu, where a complete list of international cricket matches since 1865 involving Scotland can be found (along with the capped players and their individual statistics).

A further click will take you to the full match scorecard, where there is a link to the match report (circled in green in the illustration above) that often contains details and 'fascinating facts' which are not immediately evident simply from the scorecard.

The Cricket Scotland stats service is run by Neil Leitch, Ken Nisbet and David M Potter, who are dedicated to keeping accurate and up-to-date records of all games. Usually, the full scorecard of the latest international match is posted within hours of the end of the game, with individual statistics also updated on a day-to-day basis.

The stats service also contain details, not necessarily as comprehensive, of pre-1865 matches and non-capped Scotland XI matches, as well as youth and women's representative games.

The archive team have also another achievement of which they are proud: namely, they have sourced a photograph of all but a handful of the 648 international players who have been capped since 1865.

Cricket Scotland chief executive Roddy Smith said: "Congratulations are due to the archive team for all their hard work. This latest addition of contemporary match reports is an excellent development, and not just for the 'anoraks' among us. These historical records are an important part of our sporting heritage."