Under-15's head to Italy for European Championships

The second of three Israel teams to participate in European tournaments this summer has departed, with Bologna, Italy the destinatiion for the U15 team to participate in the ECC Division 2 Championships which start on Sunday.

The ICA youth programme, not far away from celebrating its first decade since inception, will be looking to this group of players to ensure the successes of the next 10 years will begin with the same on-field achievements of the first 10 years.

There are many similarities between the U15 squad of 2009, and the U15 team that represented Israel in a youth tournament for the first time back in 2001. Firstly, coach Herschel Gutman and manager George Sheader reunite their winning partnership. Second, third and fourth, the team departs with very little match experience, very low expectations, very young and bustling with enthusiasm. However unlike the team of 2001, the players in this squad are not mainly immigrants with a cricket background; they are almost all born and bred Israelis. Although many have been playing for a couple of years, their experience has been mostly limited to hard-court cricket, they have had precious little real game experience. But thats exactly why they are going - to get the experience, get a feeling of a real tournament and return better players, ready to advance through the age levels to the senior team as two players from the 2001 squad have already done.

Israel will be captained by Daniel Bergman, and consists largely of players who have come through the Be'er Sheva schools cricket program. Matan Ritz and Gilad Zwilling are two recent recruits from Kibbutz Gezer who will be making their second trip to Italy this week having just returned European silver medalists with the Israel baseball team. Israel plays Switzerland, Belgium and Germany in the group stages, with France, Gibraltar, Isle of Man and Italy in the other group. Live updates can be found on www.icc-europe.org

Squad: Daniel Bergman (Captain), Guy Admon, Netanel Assif, Ran Assif, Eitan Halabi, Levi Kamarlekar, Bar Mesika, Matan Ritz, Micha Schachat, Shlomi Shapadov, Roi Shpitzer, Roni Vituli, Gilad Zwilling