Wellington, Dec 20 (IANS) Opening batter Tom Jones will captain New Zealand’s 15-strong squad, which includes five domestic stars, for 2026 ICC Men’s Under-19 Cricket World Cup, hosted by Zimbabwe and Namibia, scheduled to take place across Zimbabwe and Namibia from 15 January to 6 February.

The squad will depart on January 2 and will have a training camp in Bulawayo before the tournament’s warm-up period begins on January 9.

Jones, who will be attending his second U19 Cricket World Cup, scored an impressive 119 on First Class debut for Otago last month.

Additional squad members with domestic experience are Northern Districts batter Snehith Reddy and wicketkeeper Aryan Mann, Otago fast bowler Mason Clarke, and Auckland bowling allrounder Jaskaran Sandhu.

Reddy and Clarke made their List A debuts earlier this year for their respective Major Associations and attended the last tournament in South Africa alongside Jones.

Reddy brought up the highest score of the tournament (147*) against Nepal, whilst Clarke took an impressive 4-62 against runners up India.

Seventeen-year-old batter Hugo Bogue has been selected fresh off an excellent display for Otago at the National Under-19 Men’s Tournament in Lincoln last week.

Bogue was the tournament’s third-highest run scorer averaging 72 with a high score of 169 against Northern Districts.

The youngster will be joined in the batting unit by Auckland trio Brandon Matzopoulous, Marco Alpe and Jacob Cotter who were the tournament’s fourth, fifth and sixth top run scorers, respectively.

The pace-bowling stocks will be bolstered by allrounders Harry Burns and Flynn Morey who each took a five-wicket haul at the tournament and ended up on 10 wickets overall.

Former New Zealand player Anton Devcich will head up the coaching unit, alongside NZC High Performance coaches Paul Wiseman and Graeme Aldridge.

Head coach Devcich congratulated the squad, saying, “With such a talented pool of players there were some difficult selection calls, but we think we’ve landed the right balance.”

Devcich, who attended the Under-19 Cricket World Cup in 2004, said the tournament offered players an insight into cricket at the top level.

“The Under-19 World Cup is a really exciting opportunity for the best age-group talent to showcase their skills on the world stage and experience their first taste of international cricket.”

“For most of the players, it’ll be their first time representing New Zealand, which will be a special moment for both players and coaches,” he said.

Squad: Tom Jones, Marco Alpe, Hugo Bogue, Harry Burns, Mason Clarke, Jacob Cotter, Aryan Mann, Brandon Matzopoulos, Flynn Morey, Snehith (‘Lucky’) Reddy, Callum Samson, Jaskaran Sandhu, Selwin Sanjay, Hunter Shore, Harry Waite

–IANS

bc/