Canadian cricket coach Andy Pick aims to “instill some self-belief in the team” as it enters a crucial ICC World Cup Qualifier next week in New Zealand from which two of ten teams will qualify for the 2015 ICC World Cup. Pick was Canada\u2019s coach at the 2007 ICC Cricket World Cup in the West Indies. He recently stepped in as interim coach after Cricket Canada fired coach Gus Logie. Canada produced a weak performance in the ICC\u2019s Twenty20 Qualifier in the United Arab Emirates in November 2013. Canadian cricket\u2019s leaders “solution” was to fire Logie. Logie coached Canada at the 2003 ICC World Cup in South Africa.
\n
\nThe ten teams in this New Zealand qualifier for cricket\u2019s 50-overs per side ICC Cricket World Cup are divided into two groups of five with the top three from each group progressing to the SuperSix phase. The top two in the SuperSixes will capture the last two spots in the 2015 ICC World Cup and will also meet in the Final of the New Zealand Qualifier. Ireland and Afghanistan automatically qualified for the 2015 World Cup by finishing in the top two in the eight team 2011-2013 ICC World Cricket League Championship. Canada placed last with just one win from fourteen games.<\/p>\n
Andy Pick\u2019s comments appear in an ICC Media Release issued on Saturday (January 11, 2014).<\/p>\n
The Canadian content in Saturday\u2019s ICC Media Release reads:
\n\u2014 Canada, which takes on the UAE on Wednesday, is being coached by Andy Pick, who played 195 first-class matches for Nottinghamshire and Wellington in which he scored 2,259 runs and took 495 wickets. He also helped England to two ICC U19 Cricket World Cup semi-finals.
\nPick said the biggest challenge for his team has been adapting to the weather.
\n“We spent a few days in Auckland and played against a local team. It was an acclimatisation process really. Some guys have come from Winnipeg, where the temperature was minus 20 degrees, and they’ve come here where it’s 20 degrees or so, so for some of them the temperature change has been up to 40 degrees!”
\nPick said his main focus had been on improving team confidence after the side\u2019s 12th place finish at the ICC World Twenty20 Qualifier UAE 2013 (WT20Q). “I am getting the group together, getting them to produce their best cricket, and get them upbeat. There are some new faces in the team and I want to instill some self-belief in the team.” [Canada section of ICC Media Release ends.]<\/p>\n
Saturday\u2019s ICC Media Release included comments from Pubudu Dassanayake who coached Canada at the 2011 ICC Cricket World Cup, played on the Indian Sub-Continent. Dassanayake is currently coaching Nepal and provided the following assessment of Nepal\u2019s prospects in this ICC Qualifier:
\n\u3000
\n—- Dassanayake said Nepal was determined to perform strongly at the tournament.
\n“The guys have such hunger to do well, there have been no problems getting them to perform. It has really helped us to be here early and get used to the conditions. The guys took two to three days to get over the jet lag and now we’re really settled.
\n“The conditions are very different here. Weather-wise, it is similar to Nepal. In the evenings, it gets colder in Nepal too. But the wicket and ground conditions are different. The guys have such hunger to do well.” [Nepal section of ICC Media release ends]<\/p>\n
Nepal participated in the 2001 ICC Trophy hosted by the then Canadian Cricket Association in the Greater Toronto Area. A tournament where Canada placed third behind the Netherlands and surprise finalists Namibia. Canada beat Scotland in the third place playoff to capture the last available spot for ICC Associate and Affiliate countries in the 2003 ICC World Cup. Canada needs to place in the top two of ten in New Zealand for the overall common good of Canadian cricket. (EN)<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
Canadian cricket coach Andy Pick aims to “instill some self-belief in the team” as it enters a crucial ICC World Cup Qualifier next week in New Zealand from which two of ten teams will qualify for the 2015 ICC World Cup. Pick was Canada\u2019s coach at the 2007 ICC Cricket World Cup in the West […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":4,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":[],"categories":[3],"tags":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.canadacricket.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/5637"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.canadacricket.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.canadacricket.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.canadacricket.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/4"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.canadacricket.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=5637"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/www.canadacricket.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/5637\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":5638,"href":"https:\/\/www.canadacricket.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/5637\/revisions\/5638"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.canadacricket.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=5637"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.canadacricket.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=5637"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.canadacricket.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=5637"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}