Lewas announce squad

THE Kumul Petroleum PNG Lewas have named a 19-women squad on Tuesday in preparing for the ICC Women’s Twenty-20 World Cup East Asia Pacific (EAP) qualifiers set for Vanuatu next month.
Veteran and skipper Kaia Arua said preparations were going well with the team expected to feature a few Under-19 girls in the upcoming event.
“We’ve got a couple of young girls U19 who have joined us and the training schedule has become hectic from Monday to Fridays except for our rest days,” Arua said.
The Lewas would compete against Pacific countries Cook Islands, Fiji, Samoa and host nation Vanuatu with Japan and Indonesia in the qualifiers from Sept 1-8.
“Our rankings moved from 12 to 11th placing, the more we played cricket the more our ranking was going up and that’s all from last year’s performance. However we will not take that as an advantage and slack off,” she said.
“We will continue to train and work hard to prepare for this qualifier in order to vie for that spot in the world cup,” she told The National.
The winner of the EAP qualifier will compete in the global qualifiers which skipper Arua says will be challenging but they are prepared.
“I’m leading a young team down to Vanuatu but we’ve got a couple of experienced players who are coming in and taking that role to lead, especially in the bowling side,” Arua said. “The plan is to keep on doing the small things right, keep the team together, being on training and doing everything we’ve been taught.
“I believe everyone is going to perform to their best.” The women’s national cricket team are expected to depart for Brisbane on Aug 25 for a four-day training camp before departing for Port Vila for a chance to enter the T20 Women’s World Cup. Squad; Kaia Arua (captain), Sibona Jimmy (vice captain), Brenda Tau, Tanya Ruma, Vicky Ara’a, Henao Thomas, Kevau Frank, Pauke Siaka, Isabel Toua, Geua Tom, Naoani Vare; Debutants: Hane Tau, Initia Ila, Buruka Vicky