ICC Under-19 World Cup 2010 Preview

For many people there may be only one World Cup in 2010, but for us Cricket fans, there's plenty more. The first up is the ICC Under-19 Cricket World Cup which takes place in New Zealand.

The opening game takes place this Thursday at 21:30 GMT between Afghanistan and India. At the same time, Ireland take on South Africa at the Queenstown Events Centre in Group B. There's also two other games taking place around the country too (One in each group).

The Groups are made up as follows:

Group A
India
England
Afghanistan
Hong Kong

Group B
South Africa
Ireland
Australia
USA

Group C
New Zealand
Sri Lanka
Zimbabwe
Canada

Group D
Pakistan
Bangladesh
West Indies
Papau New Guinea



The tournament could well produce many stars of the future, with numerous teams having their own "Ones to Watch". The Under-19 World Cup has previously unearthed players like Andrew Symonds, Yuvraj Singh, Zaheer Khan, Shoaib Malik, and Shahid Afridi. Keep an eye out this time for Matthew Dunn and Azeem Rafiq of England, as well as our own Andrew Balbirnie and Paul Stirling. The Indian and West Indies captains Ashok Menaria and Andre Creary are also great prospects. Australia, who are one of our main rivals in Group B have their own breakout star in the excellent 18 year old Mitchell Marsh.

IRELAND SQUAD
Andrew Balbirnie (c)
Adrian D'Arcy
Ben Ackland
Craig Young
Eddie Richardson
George Dockrell
Graeme McCarter
Graham McDonnell
James Shannon
Jordan Coghlan
Lee Nelson
Paul Stirling (vc)
Shane Getkate
Stuart Poynter
Stuart Thompson

I'll be providing reports on all our games, so make sure to come back over the coming weeks to see how our boys get on.