At least three of Canada’s Pepsi ICC World Cricket League Division Two opponents have been preparing for the tournament in South Africa. The Netherlands has one more warm-up game to play on Wednesday (Jan 14) before moving on to Namibia and playing Canada in the opening round of matches in WCL Division Two.
Rizwan Cheema and Nitish Kumar were both en route to join the Canadian squad that concluded a four game series against Zimbabwe A with a win on Monday (Jan 12) at the Harare Sports Club. Examination commitments in England meant Kumar was unable to take part in the Harare warm-up games.

Nitish Kumar had taken part in a pre-Christmas one-week ICC High Performance camp in Barbados as had fellow Canadian squad members Nikhil Dutta and Satsmiranjit Dhindsa plus squad reserve Farhan Malik and Under-17 international Aslan Khan. Farhan Malik was present for the Zimbabwe A series and played in one game. Canada would otherwise have begun the trip with just eleven players. Malik will now be returning to Canada.
Nepal, coached by former Canadian national coach Pubudy Dassanayake, has played at least three warm-up games, one reduced by rain to 30-overs per side. Paras Khadka scored an unbeaten 123 as Nepal reached 259/3 after 46.2 overs to beat an Eastern Invitational XI by eleven wickets on Monday. Khadka played for Ontario Cricket Academy and Club in the Elite Division of the Toronto & District Cricket Association during the 2013 Canadian season.
Nepal beat a local club team in Benoni by 64 runs but lost by 57 runs against an Eastern Academy XI in what became a 30-over match. Eastern Academy hit 202/5 from 30 overs then limited Nepal to 145/9.
The Netherlands lost by 183 runs to a strong The Unlimited Titans side on Monday. Graeme van Buuren (103) and Jacques Rudolph (101) are both credited with “Retired – Not Out” centuries in the Titans 349/3 (50 overs). Peter Borren top-scored with 32 in the Dutch reply of 166 all out.
In earlier warm-up games, The Netherlands won by one wicket, according to the report on the Netherlands Cricket Board website, against Northerns on Jan 5. Northerns scored 263/7 and the Netherlands responded with what is shown as 264 all out – the tenth wicket, a run out, presumably took place after the winning run had been scored. Peter Borren scored 77 not out and Eric Swarczinski 71.
Next day the Dutch was bowled out for 185 by Easterns, who won by seven wickets. Wesley Barresi top-scored for the Dutch with 63.
Peter Borren top-scored with 56 in The Netherlands’ 229/7 against TUKS in Pretoria. TUKS hit back with 230/4 from 45.2 overs to win by six wickets. TUKS is the university team but is part of a specialist sports and athletics operation at the university. Canada played a warm-up game at the TUKS oval in 2006 before playing in an ICC Associates Tri=Series (Netherlands and Bermuda being the Tri-Series opponets) and beat Afghanistan at the ground in the 2009 ICC World Cup Qualifier.
The Netherlands warm-up games conclude on Wednesday against PHSOB.
The Cricket Uganda website reports the “cricket cranes” are happy in Cape Town, but lacks news of the outcome of four warm-up games against a Western Province XI and a Western Province Academy team. Former South African international Peter Kirsten is providing guidance to the Uganda squad for WCL Division Two.
The Cricket Kenya website provides little insight into what preparations are currently underway, but Kenya did play a series of games against Pakistan A in the latter part of 2014.
Mukesh Narula sounded happy when I briefly spoke with him by telephone on Monday, after Canada’s win against Zimbabwe A. Ingleton Liburd was pleased that Ruvindu Gunasekera had come through with a century in that game and provided the insight into Rizwan Cheema and Nitish Kumar’s travel to southern Africa.
Back on August 31, 2014 the Zimbabwe national team beat Australia by three wickets in an ODI at the Harare Sports Ground. Australia scored 209/9 from 50 overs. Zimbabwe replied with 211/7 from 48 overs. It was the first time Zimbabwe had beaten the Aussies in an ODI. Elton Chigumbura, recently named as Zimabwe captain for the 2015 ICC World Cup, scored 52 not out and Proper Utseya made 30 not out. They added an unbeaten 55 for the eighth wicket. Utseya captained Zimbabwe A in the series against Canada and has also been named in the Zimbabwe World Cup squad of 15 players.
It might be an idea for some of the pundits who have posted opinions on the Cricket Canada facebook page to take a look at how many ODIs in which some players in the Zimbabwe A teams against Canada have played.
Now some Canadian detractors could find a friend in the reactions on Cricinfo to the Zimbabwe World Cup final 15.
One Zimbabwean pundit was not so happy that Chibhabha (155 in game 1 v Canada) and Mupariwa (4/31 in same game) may have “got the nod” due to those peformances against a “rubbish Canadian outfit”. This fellow was really unhappy about Craig Ervine’s inclusion in the World Cup 15 (others similarly indicate Ervine cannot bowl or field) but a different view, a day or so later, was that Ervine pulled Zimbabwe A to victory against “some fine bowling” by the Canadians. “Ervine was the standout player” in a Zimbabwe A team that “just scraped a win” against Canada in game 2.
At least one member of the Canadian Cricket Association seemed to think back in April 2006 that Canada would beat Zimbabwe and Bermuda in a May 2006 ICC Associates Tri-Series tournament at the Queen’s Park Oval, Port-of-Spain, Trinidad. But Canada, lacking any warm- up game, lost the opening game of the tournament to Zimbabwe. The bowlers did quite well, but at 4/4 after 4.5 overs, including two run outs, things did not look too good for Canada.
The game was, indeed, lost by Canada. But it was not the last time that two opening batsmen for Canada were put together who had not batted together on any previous occasion, and would have had little, if any, chance to practice running between the wickets. And a number of the Zimbabwe team that fateful day in Trinidad have played for Zimbabwe A against Canada this January.
But the modern era history of cricket between Canada and Zimbabwe can wait for another day. Some might begin to realize that what happens off the field may make a major difference to what happens on the field.
One “leader” in recent years on the administrative side of Ontario cricket is on record as saying it was a long way to go from the Greater Toronto Area to a meeting in the Kitchener/Waterloo area of Ontario. I think it is a quite a bit further from Toronto to Port-of-Spain, Harare or Windhoek (Namibia) and the cricketing journey requires quite a bit of preparation. But, perhaps, I am wrong. .
At least one of the Zimbabwe A team against Canada in the current series has played 150 or so ODI matches. It would take almost ten regular seasons of 16 games to reach that number of games in the top division of the Toronto and District Cricket Association. Brampton Masters Tranzac, the 2014 Elite Division champions, had four of sixteen regular season games abandoned as “no result”. Three of those “no result” games were abandoned without a ball being bowled.
Eddie Norfolk.