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| Saturday, 14 February 2004 |
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Sri Lanka face Zim in first clash DHAKA, Bangladesh, Friday. The national selectors will be keeping a close eye when the Sri Lankan under 19 team launch their campaign for the prestigious ICC Youth World Cup with a match against Zimbabwe at the Bogra District Stadium here tomorrow (Sunday). The future of Sri Lanka's cricket will be in the hands of this fourteen member squad and their performances in this tournament will be highly appreciated by the selectors. The team which is coached by former Sri Lanka leg spinner Somachandra de Silva is a well balanced outfit and they are expected to perform well considering the fact that they will be performing under favourable conditions. Any tournament conducted in the sub continent have certainly helped the Asian countries to a great extent and this event too has all the ingredients to predict that the ultimate winner would be from this part of the World. Even then teams like Australia, England and the West Indies have struck early form by winning their warm up matches quite easily which means that they too are getting more familiar with the conditions. In addition England also performed well, winning in Chittagong without losing a wicket. Meanwhile Australia also crossed the three hundred run mark in defeating Rajshai DSA XI at the Rajshai Divisional Stadium. The Sri Lankan team had their first major work out and successfully had the better of Bogra District XI by a convincing margin of 140 runs. Sri Lanka batting first compiled 206 from 48.5 overs and then bowled out their opponents for just 66 runs in 29.3 overs. Sri Lanka have been drawn in the top half and their three league round Group 'A' matches will be on February 15 against Zimbabwe at Bogra District Stadium, February 18 against Australia also at Bogra District Stadium and on February 20 against Canada at Rajshahi Divisional Stadium. The Lankans will be fielding an experienced team with most of the players having represented their country in the under 15, 17 and in some of the youth tours during the last couple of years. In addition they had a good preparation where they featured in a limited overs series against the West Indies under 19 team. The Lankans put up fine performance to square the four match series two all. But they are certain to receive stiff opposition from the defending champions Australia and Zimbabwe and need to win at least two games from their group to qualify into the second round and for the super league competition. The draw: Preliminary round: England v South Africa at CDVS, India v Bangladesh at BNS, Pakistan v Ireland at KDVS, Feb.20: Sri Lanka v Canada at RDVS, South Africa v Nepal at MAAS, West Indies v Papua New Guinea at KDVS. |
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