Davison looks forward to challenge of World Cricket League

Canada captain John Davison has been doing its homework ahead of its ICC World Cricket League Division 1 campaign which gets underway with a game against the Netherlands in Nairobi tomorrow.

The Vancouver Island-born batsman, whose team begins its campaign against the Netherlands at Ruaraka on Tuesday, believes the North Americans have to establish themselves as the top Associate side before looking to break through into the elite.

"To me, for now, this has probably got to be our focus rather than the World Cup," he said. "This is a mini-World Cup for the Associates and I truly believe this is what we should be focusing on.

"For an Associate team to break through, they've got to lead the Associates.

"The World Cup is a bonus for all the hard work and effort we've put in."

Davison, who holds the record for the fastest-ever World Cup century - he hit a ton off 67 balls against West Indies four years ago - is predicting a close competition in Nairobi, where the Canadians will also face Scotland, Bermuda, Ireland and Kenya.

"I think we've got a pretty good dossier on all the players and we've played against all of them previously," he said.

"We've got some pretty good players and we're starting to play some really consistent cricket.

"I think it's going to be a tightly-fought week of cricket and the team that sticks to their plans the best and makes the least mistakes will probably come out on top."

There were mixed fortunes for Canada at the recent tri-series against Kenya and Scotland in Mombasa.

Andy Pick's side had to forfeit a match after a number of players were hit by a mystery bug, but they responded to record a convincing win over the hosts in the final game.

Coach Pick said of the Mombasa experience: "There were positives and negatives.

"Positives were obviously playing in that sort of heat and playing that sort of cricket.

"The negatives were the players being struck down with illness and suffering the after-effects.

"But I think, in general, hopefully everybody should be ready in the morning, should we need them."

Pick reckons his side have made great strides of late and is encouraged by the progress made. He said: "The most important thing for me is the fact that, as a team now - since we were in South Africa before Christmas - we're starting to stick to a gameplan.

"Instead of winning the odd one and losing another one by a long way, we've closed the gap massively. We're always in the game.

"We've got a number of players who can produce match-winning performances, whereas in too many games in the past, one big performance has been barely enough to keep us in the game "So it's very encouraging, the way we're playing. We're starting to see the benefits of our hard work."

Netherlands coach Peter Cantrell takes his team into Tuesday's match with limited preparation at altitude.

He said: "We're very happy, (although) we've come here pretty short - a couple of days before the tournament probably due to work commitments and whatever.

"We were here last in March with the Intercontinental. It's going to be nice to get off the synthetic grass, training in five degrees.

"They [Canada] have made a couple of changes, they're stronger now than they were. Davison is a matchwinner."

Netherlands Captain Luke van Troost is particularly looking forward to seeing how Ryan ten Doeschate and Edgar Schiferli fare in Nairobi.

He added: "Ryan ten Doeschate makes a difference, he's a hell of a good player. He has a lot of experience at county level with Essex.

"I'm very happy with Edgar Schiferli as well. We missed him for half a year with an injury... he's an opening bowler so he also can make a difference for us."