ICC World Cricket League Division 5 gets underway

ICC World Cricket League Division 5 gets underway in Jersey on Friday

As the 12 squads are named, the ICC announces details of its in-depth coverage of this exciting event.

Twelve hopeful teams have been assembling on the Channel Island of Jersey this week all consumed by the knowledge that this could be the start of a long and winding path eventually leading them to the Asian sub-continent for the ICC Cricket World Cup in 2011.

As teams will be representing such diverse places as Afghanistan, Japan, Vanuatu, USA, Mozambique, Bahamas and Germany the ICC World Cricket League Division 5, which runs from 23-31 May, is an example of how cricket can bring nations together in a spirit of sportsmanship and give opportunities for players to pit their talents against rivals from all over the globe.

As part of the ICC’s commitment to growing and promoting the game around the world, it will be providing comprehensive coverage of this event direct from the green fields of Jersey.

Ball-by-ball scores as they happen, match reports, photographs, broadcast-quality audio clips and interviews with players and coaches will be made available for free use by media via the tournament website at www.iccworldcricketleague.com For television, there will also be video news releases and colour features issued for subscribers by SNTV.

The 12-team event will be staged across six venues and will take the format of two groups of six with the top two from each section progressing to the knock-out stage.

The finalists from this tournament will be promoted to the ICC World Cricket League Division 4 thus joining Hong Kong, Fiji, Tanzania and Italy in a six-team event that will take place in the Tanzanian capital of Dar Es Salaam from 4 to 11 October.

In turn, the top two teams from that tournament will progress to WCL Div. 3 in Argentina next January and then the ICC Cricket World Cup Qualifier 2009 in the UAE, which incorporates Divisions 1 and 2.

At the end of that tournament, the top four Associate or Affiliate teams in the world will be booking their places at the ICC Cricket World Cup 2011 to be staged in Bangladesh, India, Pakistan and Sri Lanka. Those four will join the 10 Full Members to decide the top one-day side in the world.

“Such a high profile event is very important for the development of the game in our country,” said Bahamas captain Narendra Ekanayake.

“The game is rapidly becoming more and more popular, and a successful tournament will mean even more cricket coverage in the media and also give something for our prospering youth to aspire to.

“The team has been in training for around four months now. This training has involved a big fitness regime at the beginning and then moving on to working hard on the technical and tactical side of the game. We have also been lucky enough to have a strong Americas tournament in the middle of the training schedule, resulting in exactly the right preparation for a tournament such as this,” he added.

Cricket in Japan will get a huge boost if the national team does well in Jersey, according to team manager Jarrad Shearer.

“The biggest problem cricket in Japan faces is lack of exposure. The average person just doesn’t know what cricket is,” said Shearer.

“That’s why tournaments like this are so important. By being successful in Jersey, hopefully we’ll get more exposure domestically. Our goal for this tournament is, first and foremost, to win it and progress to Division 4 – we’re not here just to make up the numbers. At the very least we aim to finish in the top six at this tournament to stay in Division 5,” he added.

“Preparation has been difficult as our season doesn’t start here until April so very few of the players have had any club matches. To make matters worse, it has been a very wet season so far and few games have been able to be played. Nonetheless, we started pre-season in January and slowly built up both skills and fitness work. As winters here are quite cold, much of our training has been indoors at a tennis centre.

“We have played some practice games against a few local clubs, and we also played two games at the beginning of May against Melbourne Cricket Club, whose players included an ex-Test cricketer and a current New South Wales representative. Those games were excellent practice and we gained a tremendous amount from them. Both were close affairs and we won the second game.

“Our number three batsman Masaomi Kobayashi is definitely a player to watch. He hits the ball hard and has a tremendous eye, which gives him a lot of time to play his shots. We expect he will score a lot of runs and give most teams grief.

“Our wicketkeeper and opening batsman Tatsuro Chino is also a tremendous prospect. He has great hands behind the wicket – he didn’t drop a catch nor let a single bye through at the ICC East Asia-Pacific tournament in Auckland last year,” said Shearer.

Squads

Group A

Germany: Graham Sommer (captain), Abdul Bhatti, Ayoub Pasha, Anees Butt, Farooq Ahmed, Javed Iqbal, Rajeev Vohra, Asif Khan, Milan Fernando, Surya Narayanan, Eksan Latif, James Eggleston, Srinivas Satyanarayana, Barkatullah Masaud. Keith Thompson (coach) and Dhushyanta Ekanayake (manager)

Mozambique: Muhammad Shoaib Younus (captain), Jayesh Mohanlal Khorova, Bineesh Vadavathi, Imtiyaz Shafikbhai Lili, Mohmed Aasif Aiyub Koliya, Imran Ismail, Muhammad Ikheriya, Zainulbidin Gulam Patel, Giovanni Florentino, Chandra Shekhar, C Puspussen, Nadir Gafar Karim, Mohammed Zulficar Sidat, Muhammad Kamran Qadir, Syed Kaleem Raza Shah, Wayne P Smith. Ismail Hassan (coach) and Carlos Jaime Mandlate (manager)

Nepal: Binod Kumar Das (captain), Paras Khadka, Paresh Prasad Lohani, Shakti Prasad Gauchan, Mahaboob Alam, Sanjam Regmi, Sharad Vesawkar, Dipendra Chaudhary, Gyanendra Malla, Mahesh Kumar Chhetri, Raj Kumar Pradhan, Amrit Bhattarai, Basant Regmi, Dhirendra Bahadur. Roy Dias (coach) and Tanka Prasad Paneru (manager)

Norway: Shahid Ahmed (captain), Aamir Waheed, Abdul Hadi, Adeel Ibrar, Ehtsham Ul Haq, Majid Zia Butt, Mubasshar Ahmed Bhatti, Muhammad Shahbaz Butt, Muhammad Zeeshan Ali, Sameer Sachdev, Shahid Ahmed, Syed Munawar Ahmed, Waseem Gill, Zaheer Ashiq, Saqib Qayyum. Ralph Dellor (coach) and Shahbaz Tariq (manager)

USA: Steve Massiah (captain), Gowkaran Roopnarine, Niraj Shah, Lennox Cush, Imran Awan, Khawaja Shuja, Steve Pitter, Sushil Nadkarni, Orlando Baker, Mohamed Masood, Rashard Marshall, Rahul Kukreti,Wahab Syed, Aditya Thyagarajan. Clayton Lambert (coach) and Sohail Bari (manager)

Vanuatu: Patrick Haines (captain), Andrew Mansale, Pierre Chilia, Kenneth Natapei, Richard Tatwin, Simpson Obed, Selwyn Garae, Manu Nimoho, Lenica Natapei, Trevor Langa, Michael Avok, Aby John, Eddie Mansale, Patrick Matautaava, Lazaro Carlot. Timothy Curran (coach) and Garry Blake (manager)

Group B

Afghanistan: Norooz Khan Mangal (captain), Karim Khan Sedeq, Rais Ahamdzai, Dawlat Ahamdzai, Ahamd Shah Ahmadi, Noor Ali Noori, Mohmmad Asghar Stanikzai, Hasti Gul Abed, Mohd.Nabi Eisakhil, Samiullah Shenwari, Hamid Hassan, Jalat Khan Naseri, Abdul Rashid Zadran, Gulbadin Naid. Taj Mailk Alam (coach) and Rais Jaji (manager)

Bahamas: Narendra Ekanayake (captain), Andrew Ford, Gregory Taylor, Whitcliff Atkinson, Jonathan Barry, Mario Ford, Garfield Armstrong, Wayne Patrick, Dannavan Morrison, Dwight Weakley, Roderick Mitchell, Lee Melville, Himchan Rampersaud, Ryan Tappin. John Welch (coach) and Irvin Taylor (manager)

Botswana: Tshepo Mhozya (captain), Akrum Chand, Abdul Patel, Omar Ali, Mosa Gaolekwe, Karabo Modise, Denzil Sequiera, Saad Mohiyuddin, Karan Kapoor, Manon Barot, Shah Zaib Khan, Nadeem Tajbhay, Dave Buchanan, James Moses. Solly Chotia (coach) and Ahmed Fazal Sheriff (manager)

Japan: Ko Irie (captain), Gavin Bruce Beath, Kenji Murata, Masaomi Kobayashi, Ahmad Munir, Naoki Miyaji, Patrick Jamieson Giles-Jones, Naoki Kamatani, Tatsuro Chino, Courtney Jones, Takuro Hagihara, Kensuke Kobayashi, Yuta Matsubara, Satoshi Nakano. Richard Laidler (coach) and Jarrad Shearer (manager)

Jersey: Mathew Hague (captain), Tony Carlyon, Steve Carlyon, Jonathan Gough, Peter Gough, Christopher Jones, Thomas Minty, Andrew Dewhurst, Robert Minty, James Brewster, Sachin Patidar, Bradley Vowden, Ryan Driver, James Caunt. Peter Kirsten (coach) and Chris Minty (manager)

Singapore: Chaminda R Kumarage (captain), Zeng Renchun, Syed Ali Muhammad, James Kailash Muruthi, Narender Reddy Bonguram, Anish Edward Param, Chongwei Low, Chetan Ramchandra Suryawanshi, Arun Vijayan, Mohamed Shoib, Abdul Razak, Mohd Rizwan Nasir Madakia, Christopher Janik, Buddhika Mendis Yange Oshanka, Dharmichand Mulewa. Venkataramana Margasahayam (coach) and Mahmood Gaznavi (manager)

For a full schedule of matches go to: www.iccworldcricketleague.com

Notes to editors:

Previews of the teams in Group A and Group B were sent out on Sunday and Monday.

The ICC World Cricket League Division 5 event website includes latest news, scores and features in the lead-up to and during the tournament. This information will be free to use and reproduce and can be found at: www.iccworldcricketleague.com.

ICC will provide a video news release and some colour features during the tournament via SNTV. Details on the content, date and timing of the VNR and features feed will be provided in due course.

There is no official accreditation process for the event but in order to assist with planning and to provide an appropriate service to attending media please email chris.hurst@icc-cricket.com if you are planning to send a reporter, photographer or camera crew.

For more information go to: www.iccworldcricketleague.com