WCL5 Round-up
World Cricket League Division Five gets under-way in Jersey in less than two weeks, and teams are warming-up with varying degrees of success.
Nepal played the Pakistan Cricket Academy, losing the first two matches but gaining an unlikely win in the last. Vanuatu lost 2-0 to Fiji in a three match series, whilst Singapore whitewashed Malaysia to win the Stan Nagaiah Trophy.
Host nation Jersey is issuing a set of stamps to mark their first major cricket tournament.
Players and officials from the various teams have also been talking. Japan’s Alex Miyaji is interviewed here, whilst Afghanistan coach Taj Malik has rather dramatically claimed that he will throw himself into the Atlantic if his team don’t qualify.
Many of these stories can be found on the official website of the tournament here. Run in association with the excellent (well, I would say that!) CricketEurope team, the website will be providing regular score updates from all matches, including one completely live scorecard, lots of photos, audio interviews and video highlights.
Posted: May 13th, 2008 by Andrew Nixon.
Comments: 7
Comments
Comment from Thomas Johns
Time: May 14, 2008, 2:59 am
I had a look at the WCL Div. 5 website..and its absolutely fantastic..great work by everyone involved..
I’m quite impressed by Nepal’s showing against the PCB academy which includes 5 players who recently made their ODI debuts for pakistan..I think Nepal’s bowling will be the strongest in the tournament..and if they can consistently score 200, they will beat everyone (including the USA)..
Jersey should provide a strong challenge as hosts..
The USA will definitely be a team of interest..it remains to be seen whether they can capture the same form that they had in the ICC Americas tournament the last time they played..
Afghanistan will also be a good side..they’ve got some excellent fast bowlers..who consistenly bowl in the mid 130s..and some very good batsmen as well..
Watch out for Singapore, Germany, and Norway as outside underdogs…
Comment from Laksh
Time: May 14, 2008, 11:54 am
My Pick would be Afghanistan & USA to be the qualifiers.
Comment from Ian MacQuillin
Time: May 14, 2008, 12:13 pm
As I’ve already said somewhere else on this site that I reckon Jersey have a not unreasonable chance of making the 2019 world cup, I’ll have to go with Jersey. And, I hope the other qualifier will be Nepal, though something is telling me not get my hopes too high on that one.
Comment from amit
Time: May 14, 2008, 2:53 pm
about the wcl div 5 tournament, it looks like nepal & afghanistan will cruise through this tournament & the only thing which will be left of any interest will be who finishes 3rd & who out of nepal & afghanistan wins. nepal, just beat a very strong pcb xi which had 5 players who had recently played odis. when faced with academy teams of test playing nations, even teams of wcl div 1 & 2 struggle against them. also, some of afghanistan players have done well in pakistan domestic cricket, with 1 of them mohammad nabi even hitting a 100. nepal & afghanistan r at a standard well above the other 10 teams & they should cruise through wcl div 4 & 3 as well later this year & in 2009, should finish in the top 4 of the wc qualifiers & qualify for the 2011 wc
my picks for 2011 wc qualification will be ireland, scotland, nepal & afghanistan
Comment from Andrew Nixon
Time: May 14, 2008, 4:14 pm
amit - as I said to this exact same comment on the CricketEurope forum, it is highly unlikely that any team from WCL5 is going to get to the World Cup. Performing consistently well in 26 games over less than 12 months is hard for even the best teams in the world.
Comment from Chris
Time: May 14, 2008, 8:15 pm
Good luck to them all.
By the way, Andrew does the site search feature work? I’ve tried it a couple times to search for previous entries (instead of clicking previous all the time) and I just get an error page.
Comment from Thomas Johns
Time: May 15, 2008, 12:33 am
I wouldn’t discount the USA…and Jersey..
Nepal
USA
Afghanistan
Jersey
My picks for the semis…though it is really quite hard to make any reasonable predictions..
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