Garamuts qualify

THE International Cricket Council has confirmed the Papua New Guinea Garamuts’ qualification for the Under-19 Men’s World Cup which will be held in the Caribbean next year.
This was announced as the council confirmed that the Americas, Asia and East Asia-Pacific qualifiers had been cancelled due to the Coronavirus (Covid-19) pandemic.
The council’s development committee was therefore forced to base their guidelines for qualification on winning results over the past five U19 qualifying events in the respective region.
“It is incredibly dissappointing that the three regional qualifiers to the World Cup have been cancelled due to Covid-19,” Chris Tetley, council head of events, said.
“Under the member-approved guidelines, where teams have withdrawn due to the impact caused by the pandemic, we had no other alternative but to cancel these events.
“We have worked closely with all members to try to ensure results can be determined on the field of play, however, it was not possible for these events.”
Cricket PNG chief executive Greg Campbell said: “It is not the ideal way to qualify for this prestigeous event but we have had an extremely good history of success with our U19s. They have qualified for seven out of the last nine World Cups.
“We are thankful for this opportunity again and our Garamuts will represent PNG and East Asia-Pacific with pride in 2022.”
“It’s fantastic news and we look forward to competing in the Caribbean,” National coach Carl Sandri said. “The downside is the Garamuts miss out on the valuable match competition from the qualifiers.
“Also the experience of what for most would be their first overseas trip, this is an important step in their development.
“International cricket for the underaged sides is under resourced so to miss the opportunity to play in the qualifiers is disappointing.
“We will move forward though and prepare our squad for the World Cup, we will exhaust every avenue to get the boys some quality lead-up cricket prior to the event.”