Cricket PNG Launches Male and Female Development Camps for Promising Under 17 and Under 19 Players
Following on from the Brian Bell Village World Cup Female Under 19 Tournament, supported by the NZ High Commission that brought in 48 of the most talented young female cricket players to Amini Park, Cricket PNG is pleased to announce further development camps for 2022. Across the school holidays in 2022, Cricket PNG’s development programme for Under 17 and Under 19 male and female hardball cricket players, will bring in players in these age groups for weeklong camps, where they will play and learn in a consistent environment.
Jack Vare, former Barras Captain and current Cricket PNG Assistant Coach, is coordinating this programme “I believe if we do this consistently, year after year, we will find the next KPHL PNG Barramundi Captain Assad Vala or the next KPHL PNG Lewas Captain Kaia Arua, and many more young talented players will achieve national honours.”
Rodney Maha, National Talent ID Manager noted “We will see a wide range of players from around the country, all competing and learning together at the same high standard facilities, against consistent opposition to measure their skill levels. The information we will be collecting through the scouting system Barras Head Coach Carl Sandri introduced will help us identify areas for players to develop and will form the basis for making better talent identification and selection decisions.”
In each of the school holidays this year, a group of up to 48 players in each of the age categories, under 17 female, under 19 female, under 17 male, and under 19 male will participate in these camps (96 females and 96 males in total – note the Village World Cup for Under 19 girls where the Junior Lewas squad was selected will act as the camp for that age group this year). From each camp, 18 young players will then be further invited to attend another camp at the end of the year school holidays. Those that don’t make the short list for the advanced camp will still be encouraged to take back the lessons from their camp, and work towards the following year.
Cricket PNG General Manager Tony Naidu commented “This programme shows the commitment of Cricket PNG to give both young women and young men who show talent at cricket an opportunity to learn from our national coaches and develop their skills in our high-performance environment. Going forward, when we have ICC Under 19 World Cup teams to select, we will have a wealth of information on our youth players that our National Selectors will be able to draw on.”
Naidu added “In many ways we are opening the floodgates for our talented youth cricketers to come to Amini Park. The challenge will now be for our Cricket Associations to offer more hard ball cricket competitions for the under 17 and under 19 male and female players, so more players have an opportunity to push for places in the Cricket PNG Development Camps. I’m sure this is a challenge that each Association will relish.”
Jack Vare has started to reach out to Cricket Associations and the wider cricket community around PNG to invite talented young hard ball cricket players to this programme.