The West Indies Under-19 squad has arrived safely in Windhoek, the capital city of Namibia, ready to compete in the\u00a02026 ICC Men\u2019s Under-19 World Cup,\u00a0which gets underway with its first slate of warm-up games on Friday, January 9.<\/p>\n
The boys in maroon have been drawn in Group D of the competition alongside South Africa, Afghanistan and Tanzania, against whom they will commence battle on January 15.<\/p>\n
West Indies\u2019 three group matches will be played at the High-Performance Oval in Windhoek and prior to the start of the group phase, the team will warm-up against Ireland and Japan also in Windhoek, on January 10 and 13.<\/p>\n
The full squad departed the region via Barbados on Tuesday January 6 with a first stop in the United Kingdom, before proceeding to the African continent.<\/p>\n
Head Coach Rohan Nurse, who was present at the 2022 and 2024 editions as assistant coach, spoke on the team\u2019s readiness for the global showpiece.<\/p>\n
\u201cEverybody is clear in terms of what the objectives are and their respective roles, so we\u2019re looking forward to a successful execution,\u201d\u00a0Nurse shared.<\/p>\n
\u201cOver our two lead-up series against Sri Lanka and England, we\u2019ve batted first on occasions and won games, we have chased and won games, so I think that the team assembled is one that is prepared for any situation that we encounter.\u201d<\/p>\n
\u201cThe fact that we played well in those instances, built confidence in the group. We are quite happy with the work done and the preparation that has taken place in the territories with the pathway coaches as well as the franchises, and ultimately, we\u2019re ready to go.\u201d<\/p>\n
Captain Joshua Dorne is one of two players in the team, the other being wicketkeeper\/batter Jewel Andrew, appearing at their second Under-19 World Cup.<\/p>\n
\u201cLast time around it was pretty rough, but I learned from that experience and I\u2019m coming back stronger this time,\u201d\u00a0Dorne said ahead of Tuesday\u2019s departure.<\/p>\n
\u201cDefeating Sri Lanka then England in those series gave us a big confidence boost going into the World Cup. With the addition of Jewel, it means a lot because he has that international exposure. It means he can give information at any time if needed and offer the international experience that he possesses.\u201d<\/p>\n
Vice-captain Jonathan Van Lange echoed the sentiments of his captain.<\/p>\n
\u201cI\u2019m looking forward to the challenge. This is my first Under-19 World Cup, my first major tournament, so I\u2019m looking forward to putting in some good performances for the team,\u201d\u00a0the Guyanese all-rounder said.<\/p>\n
\u201cFor Joshua and Jewel, this is their second World Cup, and they\u2019ve had first class experience while Jewel has CPL experience, so I\u2019m definitely looking to feed off of that.\u201d<\/p>\n
Australia are the defending champions having won the 2024 edition with a victory over India in the final. India has won the most titles with five, while the West Indies\u2019 only tournament victory came exactly 10 years ago, in India.<\/p>\n
Match Schedule<\/p>\n
Warm-Up Games:<\/p>\n
West Indies vs Ireland- 10 January 10, Windhoek<\/p>\n
West Indies vs Japan- 13 January 13, Windhoek<\/p>\n
Group Stage:<\/p>\n
West Indies vs Tanzania- January 15 @ 3:30 AM (AST)\/ 2:30 AM (JAM)<\/p>\n
West Indies vs Afghanistan- \u00a0January 18 @ 3:30 AM (AST)\/ 2:30 AM (JAM)<\/p>\n
West Indies vs South Africa- January 22 @ 3:30 AM (AST)\/ 2:30 AM (JAM)<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"The West Indies Under-19 squad has arrived safely in Windhoek, the capital city of Namibia, ready to compete…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":13819,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[43],"tags":[102],"class_list":{"0":"post-13818","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-namibia","8":"tag-namibia"},"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/africa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/13818","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/africa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/africa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/africa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/africa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=13818"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/africa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/13818\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/africa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/13819"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/africa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=13818"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/africa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=13818"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/africa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=13818"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}