Youth World Cup Approaches - Zimbabwe preparations

The national Under-19 team will participate in the Youth World Cup tournament to be held in Sri Lanka in January 2000. 16 teams will be taking part, just as in the last tournament, played in South Africa in January 1998.

Then Zimbabwe, captained by Mark Vermeulen and containing, among others, David Mutendera and Mluleki Nkala, finished second in their group to Australia, and ahead of West Indies and Papua-New Guinea. They won through to the Super League but were defeated in all three matches, by New Zealand, South Africa and Sri Lanka.

England, the surprise winners of the last tournament, are in the same group as Zimbabwe, as are West Indies again and the Americas. All the Test-playing countries will be represented, as will Bangladesh, Holland, Kenya, Nepal, Ireland, Namibia and the Americas.

The schedule will begin with practice matches from 7 to 9 January, followed by the opening ceremony on 10 January. Zimbabwe's matches in the preliminary matches are as follows:

11 January - Zimbabwe v West Indies

13 January - Zimbabwe v the Americas

15 January - Zimbabwe v England

The Super League, for the two top teams from each group, will be played between 18 and 23 January, as will the plate league for those teams which do not qualify. Assuming Zimbabwe beat the Americas, then, they will need to beat at least one of England and West Indies to progress to the Super League.

The tournament semi-finals will be played on 24 and 25 January, with the plate final on 27 and the World Cup final on 28 January on the Sinhalese Sports Club ground in Colombo, which is the country's premier Test ground.