Golden Horde
School Boy/Girl Cricketer
What?
The third tier of the ICCs 50 over cricket league. For the ones who aren’t that keen on Associate cricket, that’s the level directly below where Hong Kong and PNG play. The winners and the runners up of this tournament will join those two teams, as well as Namibia and Canada, in the last-ever WCL tournament next year in Namibia. The top four teams of that tournament will get to play along with Scotland, UAE and Nepal in the new second tier of ODI cricket, which will see seven Associate teams play regular ODI cricket across the world over 3 years starting 2019. In short, plenty of lives could be changed here.
Who?
Where?
Oman! A lot of this tournament is about Oman trying to showcase itself as a cricketing nation as this will be the first time they host a major international event. And they have found the perfect way to inaugurate their new world class cricket academy which includes the two grounds where this will be held, which also happen to be the only two international standard cricket grounds in the country. I know that plenty of cricket fans scoff at teams full of expats, but I genuinely believe that Oman have a long term plan and reasonably deep pockets to fund it. They have steadily improved as a team over the last five years and although WCL events require three grounds to keep tournaments short and thus cheaper, they were so keen to host this tournament that they decided to share the costs with ICC to allow for a longer than usual tournament.
They’re also ambitiously inviting Ireland for a tour early next year. If all these tournaments go well I wont be surprised if PCB come calling in a year or two, given that UAE is having an increasingly packed cricketing calendar, which leads to higher fees for renting out the grounds.
When?
The good
Having been the laughing stock of world cricket for years, there have been promising signs from the US over the last few months both on and off the field. They’ve finally got a new board of directors, got the better of Canada in the WT20 regional qualifiers and delivered a few encouraging performances in the Windies 50 over domestic tournament without their star bowler Ali Khan, who is starting to attract the interest of T20 franchises worldwide with his skiddy yorkers.
They have also been boosted by the controversial addition of Hayden Walsh Jr. Whether they have enough quality to compete against the likes of Hong Kong remains to be seen but they’ll start as one of the favorites here.
The bad
Probably the only way one can watch this is by flying to Oman (or being there in the first place). Which is a shame because arguably one of the greatest one day matches of all times was played earlier this year at WCL 2 but frustratingly we didn’t get to see it. The ICC will have cameras at the ground for highlights but they’ve refused to show matches live so far (my theory is that because showing games live makes things more attractive to fixers, and they don’t have enough funds to have the same safety net here that they’d have at a World T20 - but that’s just a theory). However, a couple of matches of the recent WT20 regional qualifiers were streamed live, so maybe things are changing.
The ugly
Kenyan cricket has been plagued by administrative troubles and it seems like there’s something bizarre coming from them every week.
The third tier of the ICCs 50 over cricket league. For the ones who aren’t that keen on Associate cricket, that’s the level directly below where Hong Kong and PNG play. The winners and the runners up of this tournament will join those two teams, as well as Namibia and Canada, in the last-ever WCL tournament next year in Namibia. The top four teams of that tournament will get to play along with Scotland, UAE and Nepal in the new second tier of ODI cricket, which will see seven Associate teams play regular ODI cricket across the world over 3 years starting 2019. In short, plenty of lives could be changed here.
Who?
Code:
[B]DENMARK[/B]: Hamid Shah (c), Saif Ahmad, Taranjit Bharaj, Anders Bülow, Nicolaj Damgaard, Abdul Hashmi, Jonas Henriksen, Mads Henriksen, Jino Jojo, Zahmeer Khan, Frederik Klokker, Basit Raja, Bashir Shah, Anique Uddin, Shangeev Thanikaithasan
[B]KENYA[/B]: Collins Obuya (captain), Dhiren Gondaria, Shem Ngoche, Rakep Patel, Irfan Karim, Alex Obanda, Pushpak Kerai, Gurdeep Singh, Emmanuel Bundi, Sachin Bhudia, Nelson Odhiambo, Nehemiah Odhiambo, Lucas Oluoch, Elijah Otieno
[B]OMAN[/B]: Zeeshan Maqsood (captain), Jatinder Singh, Aaqib Sulehri, Suraj Kumar, Khawar Ali, Muhammad Nadeem, Mehran Khan, Jay Odedra, Bilal Khan, Ahmad Butt, Kaleemullah Mahmood, Sufyan Mohammed, Baadal Singh, Nester Dhamba
[B]SINGAPORE[/B]: Chetan Suryawanshi (captain), Aahan Gopinath Achar, Rezza Gaznavi, Amjad Mahboob, Anantha Krishna, Anish Edward Paraam, Aritra Dutta, Sidhant, Janak Prakash, Arjun Mutreja, Manpreet Singh, Karthik Subramanian, Rohan Rangarajan, Abhiraj Rajdeep Singh
[B]UGANDA[/B]: Brian Masaba (captain), Arnold Otwani, Dinesh Nakrani, Bilal Hassun, Roger Mukasa, Hamu Kayondo, Ronak Patel, Henry Ssenyondo, Frank Nsubuga, Charles Waiswa, Irfan Muhammad, Kenneth Waiswa, Deusdedit Muhumuza. Riazat Ali Shah
[B]USA[/B]: Saurabh Netravalkar (captain), Jaskaran Malhotra, Nisarg Patel, Steven Taylor, Alex Amsterdam, Jan Nisar Khan, Roy Silva, Monank Patel, Timil Patel, Aaron Jones, Hayden Walsh Jr., Elmore Hutchinson, Muhammad Ali Khan, Nosthush KenjigeOman! A lot of this tournament is about Oman trying to showcase itself as a cricketing nation as this will be the first time they host a major international event. And they have found the perfect way to inaugurate their new world class cricket academy which includes the two grounds where this will be held, which also happen to be the only two international standard cricket grounds in the country. I know that plenty of cricket fans scoff at teams full of expats, but I genuinely believe that Oman have a long term plan and reasonably deep pockets to fund it. They have steadily improved as a team over the last five years and although WCL events require three grounds to keep tournaments short and thus cheaper, they were so keen to host this tournament that they decided to share the costs with ICC to allow for a longer than usual tournament.
They’re also ambitiously inviting Ireland for a tour early next year. If all these tournaments go well I wont be surprised if PCB come calling in a year or two, given that UAE is having an increasingly packed cricketing calendar, which leads to higher fees for renting out the grounds.
When?
Code:
Friday, 9 November - Oman v Kenya, OC Turf 1; Uganda v Denmark, OC Turf 2
Saturday, 10 November - USA v Uganda, OC Turf 1; Oman v Singapore, OC Turf 2
Monday, 12 November – Kenya v USA, OC Turf 1; Denmark v Singapore, OC Turf 2
Tuesday, 13 November – Oman v Denmark, OC Turf 1; Uganda v Kenya, OC Turf 2
Thursday, 15 November – Singapore v Uganda, OC Turf 1; Denmark v USA, OC Turf 2
Friday, 16 November – USA v Uganda, OC Turf 1; Kenya v Singapore, OC Turf 2
Sunday, 18 November - Kenya v Denmark, OC Turf 1; Oman v Uganda OC Turf 2
Monday, 19 November – Singapore v USA, OC Turf 1
All matches start at 9.30am local time.Having been the laughing stock of world cricket for years, there have been promising signs from the US over the last few months both on and off the field. They’ve finally got a new board of directors, got the better of Canada in the WT20 regional qualifiers and delivered a few encouraging performances in the Windies 50 over domestic tournament without their star bowler Ali Khan, who is starting to attract the interest of T20 franchises worldwide with his skiddy yorkers.
They have also been boosted by the controversial addition of Hayden Walsh Jr. Whether they have enough quality to compete against the likes of Hong Kong remains to be seen but they’ll start as one of the favorites here.
The bad
Probably the only way one can watch this is by flying to Oman (or being there in the first place). Which is a shame because arguably one of the greatest one day matches of all times was played earlier this year at WCL 2 but frustratingly we didn’t get to see it. The ICC will have cameras at the ground for highlights but they’ve refused to show matches live so far (my theory is that because showing games live makes things more attractive to fixers, and they don’t have enough funds to have the same safety net here that they’d have at a World T20 - but that’s just a theory). However, a couple of matches of the recent WT20 regional qualifiers were streamed live, so maybe things are changing.
The ugly
Kenyan cricket has been plagued by administrative troubles and it seems like there’s something bizarre coming from them every week.
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