International Cricket Returns to Amini Park
The Kumul Petroleum PNG Barramundis will be back in action at Amini Park this Sunday as international cricket returns to PNG. Cricket PNG are hosting USA and Namibia as part of the ICC CWCL2 series, a pathway event to the next ICC One Day International World Cup in 2023.
This will be the first international cricket in Port Moresby since 2018. Kumul Petroleum Barramundis Captain, Assad Vala was excited “ it is great to be finally playing back home in front of our family, friends and fans. It has been a long time; all the team are excited to have the home crowd support and to play good entertaining cricket in front of our supporters”.
Cricket PNG CEO, Greg Campbell was also upbeat “ it’s fantastic to look out and see all the activity, we are very busy getting the ground ready to welcome back international cricket and to showcase Cricket and PNG to our visitors. The USA team arrived yesterday, and Namibia will arrive on Monday. The six-game series should be tough competitive cricket, the Barras will be up for the challenge starting on Sunday against the USA.
We also has former Australian player, Michael Dighton, up for the tournament as a specialist coach as part of the PacificAus Sports partnership. The program is supporting high performance for both our Barras and Lewas and it provides an excellent opportunity for our players and coaches to develop and learn throughout this series”
Dighton has been involved with Cricket PNG in 2011 with the Garamuts in the under 19 World Cup and was pleased to see some familiar faces.” It’s great to be back in PNG and seeing players I have worked with at junior level, I counted nine that have continued to become Barras, that’s awesome. We had our first session today and I was impressed with the talent, and skill levels of all the squad, I’m looking forward to working closely with the group over the next two weeks.
The games at Amini Park start on Sunday with free entry, they will also be live streamed and can be viewed on the ICC website and socials.