With the conclusion of Pepsi World Cricket League Division 7 in Guernsey in May, the next step to qualifying for the ICC Cricket World Cup 2015 begins at the end of this month, with six teams competing in the Pepsi ICC World Cricket League Division 6 (WCL Div. 6).
The event, the second step on the road to Australia and New Zealand, will see WCL Div. 7 qualifiers Bahrain and Guernsey join Botswana, Malaysia, Norway and Singapore to battle it out in the second tournament of a new Pepsi ICC World Cricket League structure that will reach its climax at the next ICC Cricket World Cup Qualifier which is scheduled for 2013.
The top two sides at this event, which will be played from 29 August to 5 September in Singapore, will win promotion to the WCL Div. 5 to be played in Nepal in February.
The sides are to be hosted on three grounds for the tournament - Kalang, Singapore Cricket Club (SCC) and the Indian Association.
Following on from Afghanistan's successful campaign at the ICC Cricket World Cup Qualifier, which saw it obtain ODI status following a remarkable qualifying story where it won the WCL Div. 5, 4 and 3 titles, before finishing fifth in the final qualification event, teams will be looking to follow in its footsteps and progress through the competition structure.
The full schedule and teams for the Pepsi ICC World Cricket League Division 6 is as follows:
Fixtures
- 28 August: Practice and Meetings
- 29 August: Botswana v Norway (Kalang), Singapore v Guernsey (SCC), Malaysia v Bahrain (Indian Association)
- 30 August: Bahrain v Guernsey (Kalang), Norway v Malaysia (SCC), Botswana v Singapore (Indian Association)
- 1 September: Malaysia v Botswana (Kalang), Singapore v Bahrain (SCC), Guernsey v Norway (Indian Association)
- 2 September: Norway v Singapore (Kalang), Bahrain v Botswana (SCC), Guernsey v Malaysia (Indian Association)
- 4 September: Singapore v Malaysia (Kalang), Botswana v Guernsey (SCC), Norway v Bahrain (Indian Association)
- 5 September: Final (Kalang), third/fourth-place play-off (SCC), fifth/sixth-place play-off (Indian Association)
Squads
BAHRAIN: Yaser Sadeq (captain), Fahad Sadeq, Mirza Azeem Ul Haque, Mohammed Adil Hanif, Zafar Zaheer, Mirza Ashraf Yaqoob, Imran Sajjad, Shahzad Ahmed, Mohammad Tahir Dar Mohammed Qamar Saeed, Vivek Subramanya, Halal Abbasi, Mohammed Naeem Amin, Asghar Abdul Majeed
BOTSWANA: Omar Ali (captain), Tshepo Mhozya, Karabo Modise, Mosa Gaolekwe, Faisal Rana Rasheed, Gaolape Mokokwe, Denzil Sequeira, Karan Kapoor, Abdul Patel, Indika Perera, James Moses, Shah Zaib Khan, Taroesh Trivedi, Noor Ahmad, Vanesh Seganathirajah
GUERNSEY: Stuart Le Prevost (captain), Lee Savident, Stuart Bisson, James Warr, Thomas Kimber, Gary Rich, Kristoffer Moherndl, Blane Queripel, James Nussbaumer, Lee Ferbrache, Ross Kneller, GH Smit, Jeremy Frith, Jonathan Warr
MALAYSIA: Suhan Kumar Alagaratanam (captain), Ahmad Faiz Mohammad Noor, Suresh Navaratnam, Rakesh Madhavan, Muthuraman Sockalingam , Mohd Shafiq Mohd Sharif Faris Almas Lee Rosmanizam, Aminudin Ramly, Manrick Singh Varick Singh, Damith Kushan Warusavithana, Hassan Ghulam Muhammad, Thushara Prabath Kodikara, Mohd Shukri Abdul Rahim, Muhamad Nik Azril Arifin
NORWAY: Zaheer Ashiq (captain), Syed Munawar Ahmed, Zeeshan Muhammad Ali, Aziz Ataul, Mubasshar Ahmad Bhatti, Mohammad Shabbas Butt, Zeshan Ahmed Rauf, Shahid Ahmad, Safir Hayat, Umran Shahzad, Aamir Waheed, Iram Dawood. Adeel Ibrar, Iftakhar Hussain
SINGAPORE: Chetan Ramchandra Suryawanshi (captain), Narender Reddy Bonguram, Munish Arora, Rohan Tripathi, Chaminda Ruwan Kumarge, Buddhika Mendia Yange Oshan, Christopher Janik, Anish Edward Param, Mohamed Shoib Abdul Razak, Mohamed Omar Mizran Faizal, Dharmichand Mulewa, Vivek Vedagiri, Saad Khan Janjua, Pramodh Raja Vijai Sri Ranga Singaraja