ICC U19 Cricket World Cup 2012 Teams & Players

papua new guinea team profile

Papua New Guinea will be appearing in its sixth ICC U19 Cricket World Cup, after successfully qualifying through the regional and global qualification tournaments. In February 2011, the team won the East Asia Pacific regional qualifying tournament, winning all of its five matches and beating its regional rival Vanuatu to win the event and one of two positions in the global qualifier. Five months later, Papua New Guinea placed fifth in the ICC U19 Cricket World Cup Qualifier in Ireland, winning five of its nine matches to earn one of the six available places.

The team finished 12th in 2010, after losing the eleventh-place play off to Canada by two wickets. The team had lost all its group matches but defeated Afghanistan by 30 runs in the first play off. In the team’s best match in the tournament, player of the match Raymond Haoda took 5 wickets for 34 runs, ripping through the top end, while John Reva took care of the lower order, claiming three wickets for 34 runs. An unbeaten partnership of 73 between wicketkeeper Steven Eno and Timothy Mou set the tournament record for the highest 10th wicket partnership.

Papua New Guinea has now recorded two wins from its 29 matches at the tournament. A number of players from the 2010 team are back in the Papua New Guinea squad, and the team will look to these players to help it learn from its experiences and improve its record when it takes on West Indies, India and Zimbabwe in Group C. Placed in a tough group, the team will be trying to win its first match against its most difficult rivals, West Indies, who it has not beaten in five meetings.