Cayman Cricket names 33-man national squad

Following a successful ICC T20 Americas tour in Argentina earlier this year, Cayman Cricket has its eyes firmly on the T20 World Qualifiers in 2019, and has announced a selection committee, team manager and a 33-man national squad, who will be aiming to impress the selectors over the next 10 months.

The Cayman Islands team finished runners up in Argentina and now know they will face Bermuda, Canada and the USA in May next year in the World Qualifiers. Canada and USA have progressed after beating Belize and Panama in the other T20 Americas Qualifier.

Technical Director Peter Anderson has been named as the chairman of the selection committee that was named following a board meeting in September. Other members are Pearson Best, Ian Goodall and Ezrah Hewitt.

“It was important to appoint the selection committee at an early stage so that we can get a good look at the players over the coming months. The goal of the selectors is to select a balanced side to play T20 cricket, and the players selected will need to be the best across all the specific skills involved in T20 cricket,” noted Cayman Cricket President Abali Hoilett.

Cayman Cricket officials noted the squad named may be added to during the season, based on performance, fitness and attendance. Cayman Cricket continually re-evaluate the squad throughout the next 10 months.

Technical Director Peter Anderson is the chair of the selection committee.

“It will be a very competitive year and players will need to impress the selectors. A large squad was named to give the opportunity to all the players to compete for a place,” Anderson said.

“The three teams we are up against, including Bermuda, are all ranked a lot higher than Cayman. Funding wise too – they are well above us. This means they get a lot more opportunities to gain cricket experience at a high level. USA has received a lot of help and funding from ICC along with help from the Australian and New Zealand cricket board.

“It will be a very tough competition, but anything is possible in T20 cricket and we will be travelling to win, not to make up the numbers. One over can change the game in T20, so it levels the playing field between the teams. Cayman will prepare well and we will go out there with the right attitude. I have been part of Cinderella stories with smaller nation cricket teams in the past, so I know that anything is possible,” he said.

Ricardo Roach has been named as team manager and will travel to the tournament to support the technical director.

Cayman can travel with 14 players and four reserves for the tournament, plus coaching staff. The 18 players will have to be submitted to ICC at least 30 days before tournament commences.

The squad from which the national team will be selected is: Ramon Sealy, Alessandro Morris, Chad Hauptfleisch, Darren Cato, Corey Cato, Greg Strydom, Gregory Davis, Sacha DeAlwis, Kervin Ebanks, Alistair Ifill, Paul Manning, Deno McInnis, Sunil Sunil, Gregory Smith, Troy Taylor, Lucien Watson, Omar Wills, Conroy Wright, Adrian Wright, Kevin Bazil, Kevon Bazil, Michael Reid, Demar Johnson, Ainsley Hall, Marlon Hoyte, Patrick Heron, Ruwan Kumar, Patrick McConvey, Luke Harrington – Myers, Ozair Siddiqui, Zachary McLaughlin, Akilesh Gavde, and Umroy Williams.

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