HALL OF FAME

Iain Philip was born and brought up in Stenhousemuir, just like fellow Hall of Fame member Brian Hardie. The difference for Iain was that his family emigrated to Australia just after he was getting to grips with the game in the Stenhousemuir Colts teams. His cricket education developed well in Australia, turning him into a fine back-foot batsmen, never happier than when powering the ball through cover point.

Philip soon found an ideal opening partner in Bruce Russell and they provided a continuous backbone to the Scotland innings up to the 1999 World Cup. In all he played one hundred and thirty five times for his country. This has been beaten seven times in recent years with the proliferation of representative cricket, but Philip’s total of 4,831 runs (at an average of 34.26) has only once been beaten. Philip was very much a run machine at a time when Scottish batsmen struggled to cope with the demands of facing professional bowling.

It was no surprise when he scored the first ever century by a Scotland batsman against a County in a competitive match-102* against Somerset at Taunton in 1992.