WI Under-19s wind up training camp

The West Indies Under-19 cricket squad, preparing for next year’s Youth World Cup (YWC), completed an “encouraging” pre-tournament camp on Sunday.

The players were returning to their respective countries yesterday and team manager Roland Sampath believes the two-week programme was valuable preparation for the February 15 to March 5 Youth World Cup in Bangladesh. Rain hampered a lot of the outdoor plans and affected practice matches but they covered important areas of personal, mental and physical preparation. “It was nice to have the guys here, we did a two-day seminar on personal development, etiquette and how to deal with the media and so on, and I thought the guys performed creditably well there, got high marks, we did our medical and physical, and it’s positive so far,” Sampath told CMC Sport yesterday.

The young Windies won one of four matches in the Red Stripe Bowl in October to finish second from bottom of the Zone “B” standings, and Sampath believes they are better prepared now. “The guys all looked sharp. We have seen improvement from the Red Stripe Bowl,” he said. Before the players leave the Caribbean on January 25, they will be expected to concentrate on their fitness, having been given programmes to follow and they should also be part of their national team’s preparation for the Carib Beer Series. “We are making plans for them to be attached to their respective national teams, so that they will be involved in cricket,” Sampath said.

The West Indies Under-19s will have another pre-tournament camp from late January in Sri Lanka, where they are expected to play five warm-up matches before moving on to Bangladesh. The preliminary round of matches in the YWC 2004 will be played on a round robin basis and will have 16 teams in four groups. Young West Indies will be in Group “D”, along with Pakistan, Ireland and Papua New Guinea.

Squad:
Dinesh Ramdin (captain), Kirk Edwards (vice-captain), Jonathan Augustus, Rishi Bachan, Lionel Baker, Assad Fudadin, Zamal Khan, Tishan Maraj, Xavier Marshall, Mervyn Matthew, Ravi Rampaul, Liam Sebastien, Lendl Simmons, Barrington Yearwood.
Manager: Roland Sampath; Coach: Clyde Butts.