The Zimbabwe Under-19 cricket team coach Prosper Utseya is pleased with the preparations that the team is going through ahead of the Under 19 World Cup that will be played in South Africa starting next month.
Zimbabwe are in the same pool as Sri Lanka, Australia and Namibia where the top three teams will qualify for the Super Six stage.
As part of their preparations, the team toured South Africa where they played Dolphins Under-19 as well as the South Africa Under-19 team.
They have now embarked on a tour to India where they will continue with their preparations after which they return to South Africa acclimatise and play warm up matches.
Utseya was disappointed that one of their scheduled matches against South Africa A was abandoned due to a wet outfields but he is pleased with the programme they have leading up to the World Cup.
“The main thing when we came here was to give the guys the international exposure that they needed. We played a lot of games back home with sides that are not international sides so playing South Africa Under-19 is a good benchmark for us to gauge and assess the wicket and the conditions,” he said. “The weather wasn’t too friendly, it was raining so those were tough conditions, but it was a very good challenge that we needed. So our guys now know what to work on, we are taking a lot of positives from this tour. We would have wanted to play another game against South Africa, unfortunately it didn’t materialise. We are looking good and very confident going forward. We have a two-week camp in India. We are going to make use of that to tighten up some loose ends.”
The former Zimbabwe national team captain said that he has worked with the class of the Under-19 team for the past two years.
“It’s been a two year programme the guys have been working hard we are excited we can’t wait to play. Playing South Africa helps us prepare for the World Cup. After two weeks in India we come back again to South Africa so that we have more time to prepare in the conditions here ahead of the World Cup.”
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Sixteen teams are set to participate in next year’s edition of the U19 World Cup and they are grouped in four pools of four teams each.
Bangladesh, Ireland, India and USA form Group A with England West Indies, South Africa and Scotland in B. Afghanistan, Nepal, New Zealand and Pakistan are in Group D.
