KINGSTON, Jamaica, CMC – West Indies Under-19 coach Andre Coley believes the desire for unprecedented success should be a huge motivation for his side heading to next month’s ICC Under-19 Cricket World Cup in New Zealand.
West Indies have never won the Youth World Cup and Coley, a former Jamaica wicket-keeper, says their goal is to go one place better than the runner-up finish they had in 2004.
“We have only one target and that is to win of course,” Coley told CMC Sport yesterday.
A versatile 15-man squad will leave the Caribbean on Thursday for the January 15-30 tournament and Coley believes the players have sound motivation on this assignment, to achieve what no other West Indies side has accomplished at his level before.
“We have to look forward to West Indies winning (its first U19 world title) and hold that up as a goal, as a significant goal. You have to realise that the tournament is comparable to the senior World Cup, it brings together the world’s best at this age group,” Coley said.
“It is about opportunities,” he added.
In their finest ever showing in the Youth World Cup, West Indies were runners-up to Pakistan in Dhaka in 2004.
Denesh Ramdin, Xavier Marshall, Lendl Simmons, and Ravi Rampaul, who have all advanced to the senior level of international cricket, were on the West Indies side that lost by 25 runs to Pakistan in that U19 championship decider.
The West Indies squad, with Omar Khan as manager, is a versatile unit, proliferated with talented all-rounders, including captain Andre Creary.
Initially called up for West Indies senior team duties in July when a makeshift team was assembled to face Bangladesh because of the players’ union contracts dispute with the WICB, Creary is the lone survivor from the West Indies squad from the 2008 ICC U19 World Cup in Malaysia.
He is the fourth Jamaican – after Marlon Tucker, Gareth Breese and Brenton Parchment – to captain a West Indies U19 team but the first to lead the Caribbean side to a U19 World Cup tournament.
Creary and the young Barbados batting sensation Kraigg Brathwaite are among the premier batsmen in the side.
Brathwaite, who only turned 17 years old earlier this month, has scored a remarkable 41 centuries at varying levels of domestic and regional cricket – from primary schools competition, Under-13, U15, U19, trial matches, and Barbados Division One seniors.
The young Windies are expected to arrive in New Zealand on January 2.
They will have a camp and then play warm-up matches against Ireland and Australia in Christchurch and Lincoln.
West Indies will begin their campaign at the 2010 ICC U19 World Cup on January 15 against Pakistan before facing Bangladesh on January 17 and Papua New Guinea two days later in their remaining Group D matches.
The two top teams from each of the four groups will move on to the Championship quarter-final phase and the bottom two will play in the Plate event.
SQUAD – Andre Creary (captain), Jermaine Blackwood, Nelson Bolan, Kraigg Brathwaite, John Campbell, Yannic Cariah, Akeem Dewar, Shane Dowrich, Nicholson Gordon, Trevon Griffith, Jason Holder, Keon Joseph, Evin Lewis, Yannick Ottley, Jomel Warrican.
