Sajjad Naveed
Kuwait City, 23rd September 2016: Kuwait Cricket’s National U 19 team is all set to take up the challenge of facing top grade teams of the Asian zone as they arrive at Malaysia to participate in the ICC U 19 CWC Asia Qualifier Division 2, 2016, being hosted by Malaysian Cricket Association for the Asia region starting Monday, 26th September till Thursday, October 6th 2016.
The 10 team qualifier will also see teams being placed in two groups of A and B to play a round-robin league with the top 2 teams qualifying for the cross-over semi-finals and the winners to play in the finals on 6th October. Group A consists of Bahrain, Qatar, Saudi Arabia and Singapore and host Malaysia while Group B consists of Hong Kong, Kuwait, Oman, Thailand and UAE. Matches will be held at the Kinrara, Bayuemas, Club Aman and Royal Selangor Club ovals.
With so many opportunities at stake, it will definitely be a competitive event and all the young players will have the aspiration to play at both the U19 Division 1 Qualifier as well as the U19 Asia Cup.
The young Kuwait team has been undergoing training and match practices under the guidance of Arjuna Amaratunga and has some naturally gifted players who can perform well to their potential. The team was selected after they had gone through a 3 month period of training and also based on a positive performance in the last-year’s Under-19 tournaments as well as the attitude and work ethic of the players.
The squad that has been chosen highlights the strength in depth at this age group. The challenges ahead will undoubtedly be tough in terms of the various competitions that Kuwait encounters but with those challenges in mind, the prospect at competing at the upcoming Under-19 Asia qualifier should be enough to ensure that the squad continues to work on all areas of their performance. The young squad in recent times has shown what can be possible and the challenge for all players is to succeed at Under-19 level and then push for places within the Men’s Senior side and compete at First Class Level.
The 18 member squad are as follows:
Mustaq Ahmed, Nomaan Sidiq, Varun Bhavsar, Ahmed Khalid, Abdul Haseeb, Manjot Singh, Abdul Sadiq, Hamoud Amanullah, Nawauf Ahmed, Shiv Govind Dahima, Mohammed Saif, Anas Ashfaq, Gokul Sunil Kumar, Govind Sunil Kumar, Akhil Sajeev Nair, Hannan Javed Mahadik, Mohammed Ethesham & Talha Muneer
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