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The New Year will start with a bang for the Bahrain U16s national cricket team as they jet off to the UAE for a prestigious regional tournament.
The group of 18 players has been practising intently for more than six months, focusing on key skills and mental preparation for pressurised run chases as they seek to claim glory for the kingdom.
The Asian Cricket Council U16 Western Region Tournament will take place from Sunday until January 12 and comprise seven national teams from the region. The competing teams will be split into two groups with Bahrain facing Kuwait, Saudi Arabia and Iran in Pool A, whilst Pool B includes Oman, UAE and Maldives.
Each team will play the others in their pool in 35-over round-robin matches, with the top two teams in each group qualifying for the semi-finals on January 11. The final will take place on January 12 at Sharjah Cricket Stadium.
Under the watchful eyes of team manager Omran Ghani, head coach Azeem Ul Haque and physio Awad Khan, the squad, captained by Jagan Vijayakumar, has been honing its skills in daily training sessions at the Cricket Bahrain Association’s ground in Isa Town.
Haque believes that the team is extremely talented and could go far. He said: “The team has been undergoing strict training exercises since July, with physical conditioning. More recently we’ve focused on skills and scenario practice matches to coach discipline in high pressure situations.
“The players are very talented and it’s a pleasure to work with them. I don’t have specific targets for the tournament, but I believe they are good enough to go there and compete strongly, or even win. This is by far the best selection of youngsters we’ve had in Bahrain.”
Head coach Ghani attributes the team’s prospects to a rigorous selection process.
He said: “We held open trials for 82 players, including all the schools in the area. We put them through fitness tests and then skills tests and whittled them down over time to get to the final 18 we have now.
“There is tremendous ability within the squad and they are very good players who have come on leaps and bounds in terms of confidence and teamwork. We go to the UAE with high hopes that they will do Bahrain proud.”
The team’s participation in the tournament is being sponsored by Dadabhai Travel, one of the GCC’s leading travel groups and recent winner of The World Travel Award as ‘Bahrain’s Leading Travel Agent 2017’ and Royal Bahrain Hospital, a state-of-the-art-medical care provider in Bahrain having attained the Diamond Status in the NHRA.
Aziz Gilitwala, managing director of Dadabhai Travel, said: “We are delighted to be sponsoring the U16s nation team as we are great believers in youth development, particularly on the sports field, and welcome the opportunity to contribute to providing a platform for Bahrain’s cricketers of the future to enjoy high level competition and proudly raise the flag of Bahrain on the international cricket field.”
The players who will have the honour of pulling on the Bahrain shirt are: Jagan Vijayakumar (capt), Thirumal Varnan, Safvan Saiyed, Govind Bingly, Tushar Chellamsetty, Risbabh Ramesh, Mohammad Ahmed, Gautam Chhabra, Azzam Qadri, Umair Khalid, Novead Arif, Umar Khan, Ali Hameed Khan, Sachiru Surasingha, Anuj Ramesh, Hamza Noor Zada Bahadur Khan, Emon Islam, Abhay Uday Shetty.
