Bagai to lead young Canadian side in World Cup

Ashish Bagai will lead a young Canadian squad to the 2011 World Cup, and Rizwan Cheema will be his deputy. Apart from Bagai, seamer Henry Osinde and allrounder John Davison are the two other players in the side with prior World Cup experience.

Canada have four Pakistan-born players in their squad who are still waiting to receive visas to enter India, where Canada play four of their six group games. Batsman Rizwan Cheema, allrounder Umar Bhatti, paceman Khurram Chohan and back-up keeper Hamza Tariq were all ruled out of Canada's recent pre-tournament warm-up in India because they couldn't enter the country, but have been named in the World Cup squad.

The team features seven players who have come through Canada's youth programs, including six who have represented the country at the under-19 level - Zubin Surkari, Nitish Kumar, Hiral Patel, Ruvindu Gunaskera, Parth Desai, and Hamza Tariq.

The Jamaica-born Tyson Gordon has been picked, though he still awaits confirmation of his Canadian citizenship. Cricket Canada expect this to be completed in the coming days but have named Hamza Tariq as a standby in case Gordon cannot make the cut.

The team leaves for a pre-tournament training camp in Dubai on January 26 and will head to Bangladesh on February 8 for warm-up matches against Bangladesh and England, before opening their tournament on February 20 against Sri Lanka.

Squad: Ashish Bagai (capt & wk), Rizwan Cheema (vice-capt), Harvir Baidwan, Nitish Kumar, Hiral Patel, Tyson Gordon, Henry Osinde, John Davison, Ruvindu Gunasekera, Parth Desai, Karl Whatham, Khurram Chohan, Jimmy Hansra, Zubin Surkari, Balaji Rao.

Standby: Hamza Tariq (for Tyson Gordon)