Representatives from all the 16 participating sides, Christchurch Councillor Aaron Keown, and New Zealand Cricket President Debbie Hockley, officially opened ICC U-19 Cricket World Cup in the opening ceremony held in Christchurch on 07th Jan 2018.
7 venues in the cities of Christchurch, Queenstown, Tauranga and Whangarei will witness the group phase matches with the final to be held in Tauranga on 03rd Feb 2018. The opening ceremony included welcome speeches followed by traditional Maori dances and official photo-shoots of the captains of all 16 teams.
Here’s what the Associate captains had to say at the opening ceremony (sourced from ICC website. For full comments made by Test members, click here)
Canada captain Arslan Khan: “The boys are very enthusiastic and we feel we have a very good chance of competing with the top teams. Our target is to hopefully come on top in our group. The boys are very confident of coming up with this kind of performance on the big stage.”
Kenya captain Sachin Bhudia: “We’re looking to end as the top Associate side in the tournament. We’re pretty excited, we had good preparations with some good games in Australia that has given the team a lot of confidence for this big tournament.”
Namibia player Nicole Loftie-Eaton: “We had a good preparation in South Africa where we played a tri-series and got the chance to work on our games. Our team did well last time in this tournament and we also want to reach the top eight and ensure we finish as the top-ranked Associate side in the tournament.”
PNG captain Vagi Karaho: “The atmosphere is good. It’s quite cold here but we are getting used to it, we’ve to adjust to the conditions. It will be challenging but a big experience for us to know each other. They are big games for us. Every team deserves a win – most of us are first-timers, many are young boys, we want to get more experience and build our cricket team (for the future).”
