KARACHI, Feb 6: Pakistan will play their first against Papua New Guinea on Feb 15 at Khulna Division Stadium in 16-team World Junior Under-19 cricket World Cup starting at Dhaka later next week.
Pakistan team is due to leave on Sunday to appear in the competition. Pakistan Under-19 team is placed in Group D along with West Indies, Ireland and Papua New Guinea.
Pakistan will play its second match against Ireland on Feb 17 while their last group match is against West Indies on Feb 20. The Super League of the championship will start from Feb 22.
The top four teams will meet in the Super League semifinals to be played at Bangbandu Division Stadium on Feb 29. The bottom placed teams will meet in Plate Championship semifinals starting from the same day at M.A. Aziz Stadium.
The finals of both the championship will be held in the first week of March. In all 54 matches will be held in the tournament. Nine day night matches will be held in the event and the semifinals will also be day-night affair.
Australia, India, Sri Lanka and West Indies are the other top teams competing in the event besides Pakistan. This is the fifth Junior World Cup. In the first championship played in 1988 Pakistan lost to Australia in the final and since then Pakistan did not reach the final.
Pakistan Under-19 team which at the moment is practising at National Stadium Karachi lost to a club side by six wickets wickets.
Group A: Australia, Canada, Sri Lanka, Zimbabwe.
Group B: England, Nepal, South Africa, Uganda.
Group C: Bangladesh, New Zealand, India, Scotland.
Group D: Pakistan, West Indies, Papua New Guinea, Ireland.
Pakistan squad: Khalid Lateef (Captain), Salman Qadir, Adnan Zaheer, Abid Ali, Jehangir Mirza, M Asif Iqbal, Fawad Alam, Zulqarnain Haider, (wicketkeeper), Tariq Mehmood, Mansoor Amjad, Usman Saeed, Wahab Riaz, Riaz Afridi, Ali Pasha.
Sultan Rana and Aaquib Javed will accompany the team as the manager and coach. -PPI