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By Peter Della Penna
A USACA press release has announced that this year’s Junior and
Senior Nationals will take place on back to back weekends in Florida in
November. The U-19 Tournament is scheduled for November 12-14 in Fort
Lauderdale while the Men’s Tournament will happen from November 19-21
in Fort Lauderdale.
The U-19 Tournament will be contested by four teams. The North
West and South West each qualified by finishing in first and second
place at the U-19 Western Conference Tournament in Los Angeles last
August. New York and South East finished first and second at the
Eastern Conference in Connecticut over the same weekend to book their
places in Florida.
The tournament will be used to help identify a 14-man squad to
compete in the ICC Americas U-19 World Cup Qualifier. USA will take on
Canada, Cayman Islands, Bermuda, Bahamas and Argentina in the Americas
Qualifier. The top two teams at this event will go on to play in the
ICC U-19 World Cup Global Qualifier, with a date and location yet to be
announced. USA finished second at the ICC Americas U-19 World Cup
Qualifier last July behind Canada before finishing fifth at the Global
Qualifier to clinch the country’s second ever berth at a World Cup
event.
Six teams have already qualified for the ICC U-19 World Cup Global
Qualifier for the 2012 ICC U-19 World Cup. They are Hong Kong and
Afghanistan from Asia, Namibia and Kenya from Africa, and Scotland and
Ireland from Europe. In addition to the two teams that will qualify out
of the Americas, two more teams will qualify from the East Asia-Pacific
Region to make up the 10 team field for the Global Qualifier. The dates
and locations for the 2012 ICC U-19 World Cup as well as the Global
Qualifier are yet to be announced.
Meanwhile, the four teams to compete in the Men’s Tournament will
be New York and Atlantic, who advanced out of the Eastern Conference
played in Atlanta, along with South West and North West, who qualified
from the Western Conference that took place in Los Angeles. This
tournament will be one more chance for many players to make an
impression on selectors before a squad is selected to travel to Hong
Kong for the ICC World Cricket League Division 3 due to take place from
January 22-29, 2011.
USA will take on Denmark, Italy, Oman, Papua New Guinea as well as
the hosts in an attempt to advance into WCL Division 2, which will be
played in April in the UAE. Division 2 currently includes the UAE,
Bermuda, Namibia and Uganda.