ICC initiatives are closing the gap between Associates and Test teams

The ICC's High Performance Manager Richard Done says initiatives like the ICC Winter Training Camp (WTC) in Pretoria, together with the hard work of players and various home cricket boards, are helping to close the gap between the Associates and the Full Members of the ICC.

Speaking at the end of the seven-week WTC Done said he was encouraged by the progress made by the 24 players involved.

"I think it's fair to say the camp was a huge success again this year," he said.

"The idea of it was to improve the one-day skills of these players as they prepare for the ICC Cricket World Cup next March and we can see from how they played in the matches towards the end of the camp that it was a case of mission accomplished," said Done.

The ICC WTC team won four matches and lost two against good quality provincial opposition in South Africa, with a further two games being rained off. But it was more the manner of the performances rather than the results that impressed Done.

"It was good to see the players applying what they had learned during the camp to the games that they played. They managed to rotate the strike very well, keeping the strike-rates high without taking undue risks.

"The bowlers mixed up their pace and demonstrated that they knew how to adapt what they were doing to suit various stages of the game.

"A lot of recognition should go to the coaching staff who have put in a huge amount of work over the past few weeks. Tim Boon as head coach was ably assisted by Mark Lane and I know the players got a lot from Eric Simons as well as Gary Kirsten, Kepler Wessels and Rod Marsh.

"It was a great opportunity for the players to tap into the vast experience and knowledge of these people and they certainly made the most of it."

Unfortunately for the ICC WTC team, it did not have a successful conclusion to the camp, losing to Northerns by four wickets at LC de Villiers Oval in Pretoria on Friday. Batting first, the WTC made 259-8 off 50 overs with Ashish Bagai of Canada top scoring on 79, off 88 balls. The Netherlands' Daan van Bunge (54), Ireland's Kenny Carroll (38) and Omer Hussain (27) of Scotland also contributed well to the total.

Defending that score, WTC got off to a great start with Ireland's John Mooney running out Neeten Chouhan with no score yet on the board.

But Maurice Aronstam and Malan put on 64 for the second wicket and Northerns managed to build good partnerships after that with Joubert ending up unbeaten on 57 as they passed WTC's total with four wickets and 13 balls to spare.

Pick of the WTC bowling was Muhammed Kashif of Canada who took 3-31 off 10 overs. He was ably supported by Scotsman Ross Lyons who took 1-34 off nine.

The ICC Winter Training Camp involved 24 players, four from each of the top six Associate Members, in seven weeks of intensive mental and physical coaching on all aspects of the one-day game.

This is the second year the ICC has run the camp which takes place in the hpc (high performance centre) in Pretoria.

ICC Winter Training Camp, high performance centre Pretoria Players: Kwame Tucker, Irving Romaine, Kevin Hurdle, Stefan Kelly (all Bermuda); Sunil Dhaniram, Kevin Talvinder Sandher, Abdool Mudassar Samad, Ashish Bagai (all Canada); Kevin O'Brien, Kenny Carroll, William Porterfield, John Mooney (all Ireland); Amollo Morris Ouma, Tanmay Mishra, Hiren Varaiya, Nehemiah Odhiambo (all Kenya); Daan LS van Bunge, Mark Jonkman, Alexei Kervezee, Muhammad Kashif (all Netherlands); Omer Hussain, Ross Lyons, Johan Dewald Nel, John Blain (all Scotland).