JOHN’S, Antigua – This year’s NAGICO Super50 Tournament opens next Thursday in Trinidad & Tobago and the West Indies Cricket Board has decided to include a West Indies Under-19 squad as one of the eight-teams taking part.

The Tournament will be used by the WICB to help assess the abilities and the qualities of available Under-19 talent as part of a long-term build-up for the next ICC Under-19 World Cup next year.

The Windies Under-19s have been drawn in Group “B” next to the Jamaica Franchise, Leeward Islands Hurricanes and hosts Trinidad & Tobago Red Force. 

The first stage of the Tournament will be the group stage comprising a series of non-elimination matches in each group – each team will play every other team in its group – with two matches being contested daily at either the Queen’s Park Oval, the T&T Cricket Board’s National Cricket Centre in the central Trinidad community of Couva, or Shaw Park in Scarborough, the capital of Trinidad’s sister island Tobago.

Following the group stage, the top two teams in each group will progress to the semi-finals at the Oval, where the group winners play the runners-up from the opposite group in a one-off match for a place in the Grand Final on Sunday, January 25 at the same venue. 

Today, WICB Media presents key quotes from West Indies High Performance Centre Head Coach Graeme West. He will perform the role of Head Coach of the Windies Under-19s for the NS50.

On what he hopes to accomplish from the Tournament:

Initially, it would be to assess where the players’ skill levels. The selectors have picked the squad based on recent competitions for Under-17s and Under-19s, so this tournament will be the start point for our countdown to the next ICC Under-19 World Cup. We want to assess the players and identify their strengths, so that we can start to build the nucleus of the side that we want to send to the World Cup next year. To be successful, we will need to develop a core group of players that have played at the highest level that we can make available to them at this stage.

On the composition of the side:

We have added a few players that are a bit over the age limit, but have played at the previous World Cup to give the side a bit more of a competitive edge. We have included Ramaal Lewis, the incumbent Windies Under-19 captain, Roland Cato, the Windwards Under-19 captain, and Tagenarine Chanderpaul, who has played for the senior Guyana. Given the quality of the opposition that we were due to face, we felt we needed a bit more depth in the side and that’s why these three players have been added.

On the remaining players that will form the nucleus of the squad for next year:

We seem to have a pretty good choice of fast bowlers with Alzarri Joseph as one of the stand-out players, someone that played at the last World Cup and has been knocking on the door of the senior Leewards side in recent times. Kemo Paul was one of the players that caught the eye during the last Regional Under-19 tournament, performing with both bat and ball, and we will be keen to see how much he has developed as we seek to find a few promising all-rounders. Opener Shimron Hetmyer recently played first-class matches for Guyana in the WICB Professional Cricket League Regional 4-Day Tournament and did reasonably well. These are three familiar faces, but there are others that we hope to find out more about them during the tournament as this provides them all with a chance to assess where their skills lie and where they need to improve.

On preparation:

We have a few practice matches once we arrive in Trinidad to help us assess the kind of conditions we may expect from playing there. We will do the usual training sessions around the roles and responsibilities that each player will have. There will be a lot of simulations to help them understand how best to handle different match situations and this will be hugely important. We will also focus on building a good team unit and discover the personalities of the players in the team, the leaders in the team, so it will be a hectic period of preparation, but we will make it a wonderful experience for the players leading into the tournament.