NEWS RELEASE BY THE JOSEPHIAN-PETERITE ALUMNI ASSOCIATION – CANADA (JPAA CANADA)
The National selectors have named the Canada squad for the ICC WCL Division 2, Namibia from January 17th to 24th, 2015. Prior to the tournament the team will travel to Zimbabwe from January 3rd to 12th where they will play four matches against Zimbabwe 'A' team.
The 2015 ICC World Cricket League Division 2 is a cricket divisional tournament organised by the International Cricket Council. It forms part of the ICC World Cricket League and a qualification pathway for the ICC World Cup 2019.
Three Sri Lankans are named in the pool of 18 – 14 players + 4 reserves. Ruvindu Gunasekera has been a regular opening bat for Canada in the last few years and a reliable spinner. Star batsman Srimantha Wijeyeratne will don his Canadian "Cap" and will strengthen the team. Trevins Bastiampillai has also been picked as a "reserve", and is in the pool of players.
Of particular interest to the Joe-Pete fraternity is the fact that Ruvindu Gunasekera and Srimantha Wijeyeratne are Old Peterites while Trevin Bastiampillai is an Old Josephian.
From the Province of Ontario they play in the Toronto and District Cricket Association Premier League, all three are top performers in the league and also play for their respective school teams in the Canada Series of the "Battle of the Saints" (Josephian-Peterite) which has now reached its 30th year. JPAA Canada was formed in 1984. The Canada squad is as follows:
- Jimmy Hansra – Captain – BC
- Rizwan Cheema – ON
- Ruvindu Gunasekera – ON
- Nitesh Kumar – ON
- Srimantha Wijeyeratne – ON
- Umer Nawaz – BC
- Cecil Pervez – ON
- Hamza Tariq – AB
- Navneet Dhaliwal – ON
- Varun Sehdev – ON
- Satsimranjit Dhindsa – ON
- Parth Desai – ON
- Nikhil Dutta – ON
- Durand Soraine – ON
Reserves –
1. Trevin Bastiampillai – ON
2. Awais Ahmed – BC
3. Usman Limbada – ON
4. Farhan Malik.- AB
Coach – Mukesh Narula
Manager – Naresh Jain