Five Changes To USA Squad For Papua New Guinea Tour
The USA Cricket National Selection Panel has named a 14-man squad to represent the United States of America in the final ICC Cricket World Cup League 2 (CWCL2) series of the tournament for Team USA. USA will play against the hosts Namibia and Papua New Guinea in Windhoek from November 20th – 26th.
The selectors have chosen to make changes after a disappointing tour of Papua New Guinea. Every match is as important as ever on the path to the ICC Cricket World Cup Qualifier in June 2023 that the top three teams in the league qualify automatically for. There is a huge amount still to be played for and the team is targeting as many wins as possible in Namibia to attempt to avoid a 6th or 7th place finish in the league. The four sides from 4th to 7th in CWCL2 will be joined by the winners of the two ICC CWC Challenge Leagues in a 6 team event in April to decide the final two qualification places for the CWC Qualifier in June 2023.
There are five changes in total to the squad with two players returning after absences from the tour of Scotland in August. The Hampshire all-rounder, Ian Holland and the opening batter Sushant Modani both return having missed out in Papua New Guinea due to county commitments and visa issues respectively.
There are three additional players called in to the team, Usman Rafiq who last played for USA in 2018 returns to the squad after a prolific domestic season including a sensational all-round Minor League Cricket campaign for the Houston Hurricanes. Then there are maiden international call ups for Saideep Ganesh and Shayan Jehangir who are brought into the squad to bolster the batting and wicket-keeping options for the squad.
Team USA will fly in to Windhoek over a week in advance of the first One Day International match and will play two 50 Over practice matches vs Namibia ‘A’ Select XIs to help acclimatization and getting used to the local conditions which many of the squad will know well and have fond memories of as it was the venue where USA obtained One Day International status at the final ICC World Cricket League event in April 2019.
Chair of the USA Men’s National Selection Panel, Michael Voss, said, “We as a selection panel have made changes to the squad to address some of the areas where we have not performed consistently of late. We are in a position now in this league where we are in need of as many wins as possible in our final four matches. We are significantly boosted by the return of Sushant and Ian who are available again having missed the Papua New Guinea tour, while we are pleased to give call ups to Usman, Saideep and Shehan. Usman in particular is a wonderful story having not played for the USA for over 4 years and forcing his way back in through domestic performances that could not be ignored.”
Richard Done, USA Cricket Operations Director, added, “Everyone involved in the Men’s National Team was very disheartened by our efforts in difficult conditions in Papua New Guinea. The selection panel has chosen to make changes for the squad and we have to believe that the 14 players named can show their skills in Windhoek, a place all American fans will have great memories of, to close out our CWC League 2 campaign on a high and ensure we finish with as many points as possible on the table. Whatever the results in Windhoek, we will have a huge amount to play for in 2023 as we continue to strive for qualification to the ICC Men’s Cricket World Cup Qualifier in June next year.”
USA Squad
Monank Patel (Captain)
Aaron Jones (Vice-Captain)
Cameron Stevenson
Gajanand Singh
Ian Holland
Jasdeep Singh
Nisarg Patel
Noshtush Kenjige
Saideep Ganesh
Saurabh Netravalkar
Shayan Jehangir
Steven Taylor
Sushant Modani
Usman Rafiq
Coverage:
All matches will be broadcast live on willow.tv in North America, Fancode in India and on icc.tv throughout the rest of the world. Tour coverage and updates will be provided on the USA Cricket Social Media channels via @USACricket on Twitter, Facebook and Instagram.
Schedule:
All games are at the Wanderers Cricket Ground in Namibia with 9.30am starts (which is 3.30am/12.30am ET/PT)
Sunday 20th November USA vs Namibia
Tuesday 22nd November USA vs Papua New Guinea
Friday 25th November USA vs Papua New Guinea
Saturday 26th November USA vs Namibia
