Burger emphasises the need to “play the conditions, not the situation” - so if Scotland lose early wickets, they should be thinking more in terms of what is a good total on the pitch, rather than what their score is now. Burger asks Cross: “If we are suddenly 30-3 how are we actually going to play? How would we like to play in that given situation?” Cross’s answer - “If it’s a good wicket I don’t think anything changes, you’ve got to back the number five and six” - adheres to Burger’s philosophy. “We could be 30-3 but we still need 350. That’s got to be the mindset.”

The rest of the slide focuses on a common theme: “How can we transfer pressure onto the bowling attack?” With wickets in hand, overs 30-40 can be treated as a “glorified extra Powerplay”, Burger explains. Toby Bailey, the assistant coach, chips in to say that Afghanistan tend to keep their worst fielders behind the bat. Coetzer notes that one side of the Grange ground is shorter and so easier to hit to.

“Be aggressive and hit hard lengths,” begins the presentation for how Scotland want to bowl. Burger stresses the need to adapt to conditions. “If it’s seaming back yourself to nick them off. Have a couple of slips - that’s the mindset we want to have.” Conversely, “If it’s a gun wicket then we need to be ahead of the game. Then we might need to go death earlier - more yorkers.”

The surge in ODI run rates has heightened the need for smart bowling. “Have a ‘one’ ball,” Burger says - a go-to ball to get the batsman off strike. “Everyone’s got to be ready to bowl at the death,” he tells the bowling group - so if one opening bowler is bowling particularly well, they may bowl out earlier in pursuit of wickets, leaving others for the death. He emphasises continuing to attack mid-innings, targeting at least three wickets in the phase from the 11th to 40th overs. The most important deliveries in each over, Burger says, are the first, second and last - find a way to navigate these, and the other half of the over is more likely to fall into place.

The next slide shows one of Burger’s new ideas: a fielding map with five zones, plus “no man’s land”, just outside the 30-yard circle. This system “might save time,” he tells the team - so Scotland have scope to take longer at the death, if it is useful to slow the game down then and try and disrupt the batsmen’s rhythm.

Now it is time to discuss their opponents in more detail. Scotland are familiar with Afghanistan, and thrashed them in the World Cup qualifying tournament in Zimbabwe last year. Burger throws it open to the team: “What do we know about Afghanistan? What can give us an edge over them? What are the little one percenters that we can talk about that’s going to get us over the line?”

“They’re a team that wants to make things to happen. In general if we get on top it’s about sticking to the game plan,” says Calum MacLeod, who scored 157* in that victory. “They’ll go searching for wickets… They want the game to happen at their pace.” Ali Evans, Scotland’s experienced pace bowler, tells the team: “When we stay in the game long enough and fight and things don’t happen that’s when the in-fighting happens.”

“To certain batters, is being slightly more defensive actually an aggressive option? I know that’s a bit of a riddle,” says Coetzer, looking up from his notebook, which he has been scribbling in diligently. Keeping men back for certain players is a tool to “play on their egos”, as worked well against the West Indies last year.

While most Afghanistan players are familiar enough to Scotland, there is particular focus on two. The first, opener Hazratullah Zazai, has never played against them before but has made a blistering start to his international career. Burger has studied footage of Zazai in the Bangladesh Premier League, noting that “he’s very leg side.” So Burger has hatched a plan: to bowl a tight off stump line, cramping him for room, and consider bringing third man up early on to provide extra protection on the leg side.

The second opponent to attract extra attention is Rashid Khan, Afghanistan’s world-leading leg spinner. Scotland are not sure if he’ll play, owing to his IPL commitments, but Burger has prepared a few Powerpoint slides with stills of Rashid about to deliver both a googly and leg break, requiring the players to identify which ball is which. The difference is subtle, but Rashid tends to show more of the ball before delivering a googly.

For all Afghanistan’s spinners, “It’s definitely worth getting in and doing some work on the videos with Toby,” MacLeod advises. To help his batsmen prepare for Afghanistan’s spinners, Burger gives up his hotel room for a night to Chris Greaves, a leg spinner on the fringes of the squad, and stays at home instead.

Each player has access to video footage on their phones via an app, and is encouraged to talk with Burger or Bailey about more bespoke plans. Under Grant Bradburn, Burger’s predecessor, the team also received a pre-match analysis presentation on Scotland’s WhatsApp group. For now, Burger has moved away from this approach, believing that players would benefit from taking greater ownership of their plans.

Scotland use the Sports Always by Sports Mechanics app, an analytical programme which countries in the International Cricket Council’s high performance programme have access to. The information includes the scoring regions for each opposition batsman in all eight parts of the ground and a wagon wheel of each player - when they score their runs, which can be tailored for bowler type and stage of the innings.

Bailey distils these findings into batting shadows of all the opposition team - shadow images of the batsmen, accompanied by a few bullet points with the most salient information and green and red spots, detailing the best and worst place to bowl to the player. Coetzer has often taken a ‘cheat sheet’ - pages with the most salient information on the opposing batsmen - onto the field in his pocket to help in the cauldron of matches.

Just occasionally, there are moments when everything pans out as planned.

In a presentation before Scotland’s game against the West Indies last year, Bailey showed the players that, for right-arm fast bowlers bowling to Chris Gayle, ‘key is pitch on the stump line from over the wicket’ especially during the Powerplay. From the very first ball of the match, Safyaan Sharif did just that, enticing Gayle to edge behind.

“It might be a Plan A, and Plan B - as long as a bowler knows that and is clear in his head,” Bailey explains. “Then the bowler can go out and perform their skills. If the mind’s too cluttered then it’s very hard to do that. It’s important for the players to have ownership.”

At training there is particular emphasis on preparing for Afghanistan’s spinners; several spinners have been roped in from around the country to bowl to Scotland’s batsmen. When preparing for his net, MacLeod explains how the short square boundaries at The Grange suit his penchant for sweeping.

When training is finished, at 4.30, the team assemble in the changing room, and Burger goes through the side in batting order. He sees no need to announce his XI publicly before the toss, and give their opponents a slight advantage. “We’re one unit - it’s not just about the 11 who go on the park,” Burger tells the players. “If you want to chat to me about your specific roles please come and chat.”

Back in The Village Hotel, the players reconvene at 6.30pm to receive caps from Douglas Lockhart, who played 178 games for Scotland. Lockhart, who stopped playing in 2010, juggled his career with working in insurance; now, all Scotland’s players are professionals. The difference between now and his era, Lockhart says, is Scotland now expect to win their ODIs against Full Members, imploring the players to “create memories”.

Lockhart, who sits on Cricket Scotland’s board, outlines that there is a much broader context to Scotland’s four ODIs in May, two apiece against Afghanistan and Sri Lanka. Scotland have declared their ambitions to be the next Full Member of the International Cricket Council, and have so far fulfilled 17 of the 21 criteria. They could tick off another in the days ahead: prospective Full Members need to have recorded four victories in official internationals over countries ranked in the top 10. Scotland have two so far. Their main barrier to getting a third has been not playing: the first game against Afghanistan is their first ODI for 333 days, since toppling England.

So the abandonment of the first ODI is particularly cruel, and merely heightens the significance of the final match two days later.

When the cricket finally arrives, Scotland bat first. After a circumspect start, Coetzer and MacLeod - sweeping adroitly in making his third century in his last six ODIs against Test opposition - lead them to a total of 325-6.

In Afghanistan’s chase, Zazai only lasts 12 balls, caught by Coetzer running back from mid off attempting to hit the ball straight. “Kyle and the bowlers set some good fields to him,” Burger reflects. “We were aggressive to him and Kyle ended up taking a great catch. It’s one of those where you go 'yup, plan came together'.”

Other plans do not go as well. Scotland had hoped to stall Rahmat Shah, Afghanistan’s number three - “normally he can eat up a few dots” - but bowled too loose to him at the start of his innings. Afghanistan spend the bulk of the chase slightly in the ascendancy, but Scotland are ultimately defeated by the weather: when the rain comes, Afghanistan had reached 269/3 in the 45th over - just two runs ahead of the DLS par score.

“We took another top 10 team very close but just couldn’t get over the line,” Burger reflects. In the dressing room afterwards, “they were very disappointed which shows a big care and passion towards the badge. It’s good that a defeat hurts.”

A week later, Scotland reassembled, to review the Afghanistan game and then focus on their next opponents, Sri Lanka, who they play in an ODI tomorrow after the first game was washed out. Naturally, Burger has prepared by "trying to get as much information as we can and find all those little one percenters that will make a difference.”