Canada’s tournament must be considered a major success; they achieved their objective of promotion to Division 2, despite the tournament being played in unfamiliar surroundings, and after a long winter when cricket simply isn’t feasible in Canada. In 2015, the team had slumped to 5th place in Division 2, and were relegated, beating Kenya and Uganda but losing to Nepal, Namibia and the Netherlands.
Nine of the players from the 2015 squad returned for this tournament, albeit under a different captain, Nitish Kumar now in charge, with former captains Rizwan Cheema and Jimmy Hansra in the squad. As it turned out, eleven players played most of the cricket in the tournament; Mark Montford watched from the sidelines, the slow pitches not suiting his bowling, Durand Soraine played just the final and didn’t bat or bowl, and Junaid Siddiqui played only once. The eleven for the most part consisted of Kumar, Adhihetty, Pathirana, Dutta, Rizwan Cheema, Hamza Tariq, Dhaliwal, Dhindsa, Pervez, Saad Bin Zafar and Hansra.
Coming into the tournament, the host team Uganda ,who were also relegated from Division 2, would be expected to be a tough opponent, the USA who Canada had only beaten narrowly in the Auty Cup were highly rated, and Oman were clearly a team on the rise, so a top two finish was by no means certain. As it turned out, Canada’s losses were to the other two sides, Singapore and Malaysia.
The discovery of the tournament was undoubtedly Bhavindhu Adhihetty, who had just turned 17 years old and with only the Auty Cup matches behind him. He was the tournament’s top run scorer making 86 against Oman in the final, 67 against the USA and 44 in the round robin game against Oman. He forged an excellent opening partnership with Nitish Kumar, yielding 32, 77, 22, 74, 0 and 102, and the good starts played an important part of Canada’s success in the tournament.
Kumar himself had a good tournament, averaging 30 with the bat, bowling well when required, and seemingly comfortable with the responsibilities of captaincy. A player of his class however would be disappointed at being unable to play the big innings he was capable of, getting starts in nearly every game but with a top score of 50.
Dhanuka Pathirana came into the team with extensive first class experience in Sri Lanka, and this showed as he topped the Canadian averages with 208 runs at 41.60 batting at three. Although entering the later stages of his career at 35, he will be an important part of the team going forward.
The middle order overall did not perform as needed – Canada batted very deep and in most matches had to. Dhaliwal made 118 runs in 6 innings, reaching double figures in every match bar one, but with a top score of 37 and an average of 19.6. Jimmy Hansra struggled – he was carrying an injury into the tournament and this perhaps impacted his pre-tournament preparation – but 16 runs from four innings was very disappointing. Hamza Tariq also was below par in the tournament with 66 runs from five innings.
Nitish Dutta showed his batting has developed to where he has to be considered a genuine all rounder. He averaged 34.5, and played a major role – he batted in every position from 5 to 8 in the order – and played several important innings when the middle order had failed.
Rizwan Cheema showed that, against this class of opposition, he can be devastating. He is at times inconsistent with his highly aggressive approach with the bat, but in this tournament it paid off, with 181 runs at a strike rate of 157.39. His 91 against Uganda was a match winning innnings, and a rapid 42 against Oman was followed by two wickets in another man of the match performance. Another 42 took Canada to the brink of victory in the two run loss against Singapore, and he was deservedly named man of the tournament.
Rizwan Cheema took 6 wickets in all, and was part of a solid all-round bowling performance. Pervez and Dhindsa made early breakthroughs in nearly every match, with Dhinda topping wicket=takers with 11, Pervez with six, as well as being the most economical of the bowlers who completed more than 10 overs. Dutta was also economical and took eight wickets, and his fellow spinner Saad Bin Zafar took 5 wickets.
Without seeing more than brief highlights it is hard to comment on the fielding, but even the highlights showed some good catching, and a couple of well executed run-outs.
Overall Canada wil be well pleased with their performances, although will regret losses to Malaysia, the weakest team in the tournament, and to Singapore, where Canada lost three wickets for 5 runs with only 8 required.
Division 2 beckons, and a lot of hard work will be required to be competitive against much stronger teams. Cricket Canada will need to give the team match practice against good opposition- at present Canada has no international matches scheduled. The venue and date for the Division 2 tournament is not known at present but it is likely Canada will have close to a year to train and prepare for it. The team is overall in good shape, but options for middle order bats need to be tested, as well as adding genuine pace in case the tournament is played on faster pitches. But overall, the team, management and Cricket Canada should be congratulated for executing a well thought out plan of selection, preparation and tournament play to achieve their objective.