Malaysia to host U-19 World Cup

Malaysia will become the first associate member to host the Under-19 World Cup when it stages the event in February 2008.

The ICC awarded the tournament to Malaysia when its executive board met in Dubai at the weekend, and it also announced that the biennial event would subsequently be staged in Kenya, Canada and United Arab Emirates.

"We are delighted to be able to spread our top junior cricket event around the emerging cricket world," Ehsan Mani, the ICC's president, said. "The U-19 World Cup has a rich history of showcasing the stars of the future from West Indies captain Brian Lara in 1988 to India's Piyush Chawla in 2006, and it is very exciting that the next four events will all take place in associate member countries."

"Malaysia has a proven track record of staging international cricket events. It successfully staged cricket during the 1998 Commonwealth Games and has previously hosted the ICC trophy and the World Cup qualifying series division two."

The UAE has also been awarded the right to host the 12-team ICC World Cup qualifier (formerly known as the ICC trophy) in 2009. In 2013 the event will be hosted by Scotland. In between, the ICC world cricket league division one will bring together the top six associate members. This will be hosted by the Netherlands in 2010.