Captain assures preparation of national team

NATIONAL men’s cricket team captain Assad Vala says the Papua New Guinea Barramundis will be prepared for next year’s T20 World Cup in India.
Vala made this comments on Friday following the presentation of K100,000 from corporate partner Ela Motors to Cricket PNG.
“It’s good for this kind of support to come in so that we can better prepare our players and it will definitely help the game grow in the country,” he said.
“We’re in the second phase of our pre-season. We finished the first part early this year because we were not able to have a lot matches domestically.
“But the support from Ela Motors will hopefully get us out for a few competitions.
“It would be great to have a few of our guys go out and play some club cricket in Australia so that they can get more game time and be able to see how they fair in the longer formats of the game as well.”
Vala said preparations under national coach Joe Dawes were progressing well with more work to be done after the International Cricket Council moved the World Cup from Australia to India.
“It’s not quite the conditions we would have faced in Australia, it’s going to be a bit different but we have a really good team,” he said.
“I believe our strengths lie in our skills and knowledge.
“Dawes has been involved in the Indian Premier League (cricket) and he has experience with games in India and their teams so he has a few ideas before we get there.”