Kenya U19 jet out for ICC World Cup
What you need to know:
- The under-19 team coach Jimmy Kamande on Wednesday said that while in Sydney, the boys will play two friendly matches.
- He said that they will leave Sydney for Christchurch, New Zealand on January 7.
The World Cup-bound Kenya Under-19 team leave for Sydney, Australia on Friday, en route to New Zealand.
The under-19 team coach Jimmy Kamande on Wednesday said that while in Sydney, the boys will play two friendly matches against Sydney Thunders on January 3 and 6. He said that they will leave Sydney for Christchurch, New Zealand on January 7.
Kenya is one of the 16 teams that will fight it out for the World Cup trophy. Kenya is among the four teams from Africa in the tournament. The other three include two Test playing countries, South Africa and Zimbabwe, both with automatic qualification to the World Cup. The other team is Namibia, who like Kenya, is an associate members of ICC.
However, Namibia did not take part in the ICC Africa Under-19 World Cup qualifier in Nairobi in July as they had automatic qualification to 2018 World Cup for being the highest ranked associate team at the 2016 event in Bangladesh.
The 16 teams are placed into four pools and Kenya is drawn in Group A together with Under-19 World Cup defending champions West Indies, 2014 World champions South Africa and hosts New Zealand.
The boys are on high morale, fit and rearing to go. We have no injuries in the side and we expect to do well in New Zealand,” said Kamande.
Kamande also said that Aman Gandhi, a right-hand batsman will open batting for Kenya with either Rene Were (left-hand batsman) or Dennis Musyoka (right-hand batsman). He said that bowling attack will be spearheaded by Maxwell Ager (left-arm medium pacer), with either Gerald Mwendwa (right-arm medium pacer) or skipper Sachin Budhia (right-arm medium pacer).
Full Squad: Sachin Bhudia (captain), Thomas Ochieng, Ankit Hirani, Abhishekh Chidambaran, Aman Gandhi, Aveet Desai, Dennis Musyoka, Gerard Mwendwa, Jasraj Kundi, Jayant Mepani, Maxwel Ager, Sukhdeep Singh, Jay Doshi, Rene Were and Siddharth Vasudev.
