Canada Coach Looking For A Win In T20 Quadrangular

On the eve of the quadrangular Twenty20 series involving Canada, Zimbabwe, Pakistan and
Sri Lanka, Aaron Kumar spoke to the Canadian national coach, Pubudu Dassanayake.

Dassanayake talks to Cricket World® about Canada’s good performance in the recently concluded triangular tournament, their prospects in the quadrangular series, his hopes for the future and his thoughts on club cricket in Canada.

Canada recently reached the finals of the triangular series, involving Bermuda and the
West Indies, what impressed you the most about your teams performance in that competition and what can you take from that tournament?

At the beginning of the year, we had a few problems, as there were too many injuries and then some people were not available for different tournaments, too many players went in and out. But in the tri-nations series we had our best combination. The main reason that we did well in that tournament was that the team was together and they gelled, and they played as a good team.

I would like to give a special mention to Rizwan Cheema, he was playing international cricket for the first time in the tri-nation series and he performed really well, he scored two quick 50s and when an opener scores a quick 50 it gives a real boost to the whole team.

What are your thoughts ahead of the forthcoming quadrangular series at the weekend?

Since the start of the year, our main target was to play Twenty20 cricket because of the Twenty20 World Cup qualifier. We are really ready because we know the areas where we went wrong in the World Cup Qualifier. The preparation for this tournament has been very good, we are really playing together, tomorrow we play Pakistan. We are just going to play to our strengths, and hopefully we can pull of an upset in this tournament.

You mention pulling off an upset, what would you consider to be a good performance for Canada in this tournament in terms of results?

We want to beat Zimbabwe, to win one game in this series for sure, and then against Pakistan and Sri Lanka, if everything goes according to plan then we might be able to beat one of those teams. If not we want to pull off a good score and play a good game.

In Twenty20 cricket one or two overs is enough to change the whole game. At the same time if you make one big mistake then it is not easy to recover so it is anybody’s game and we are the host team we know how the wicket is behaving, we know the King City Cricket ground, the weather is a bit cold and our players are used to it, so there is a slight advantage to our side but it just a matter of us being able to do things right.

© REUTERS/Andy Clark (TRINIDAD &TOBAGO). Picture Supplied by Action Images

What are your long term goals for this Canadian team?

The main aim is that we need to prepare the team for the World Cup Qualifier next April - we want to play in the World Cup, that is the main goal for us.

Right now our team's average age is around 30, I am planning to bring that down slightly to 27 and we have a few plans to get a few players contracted to play full time.

But we are not looking at big changes until April. We want to go with the same team, keep that team together and do well in the qualifier, once we qualify for the World Cup we plan to build a young team for the 2011 World Cup.

What do you think of club cricket in Canada but in particular the Toronto and District league?

The Toronto District league is the best league in Canada, it is the only league that has turf - the other leagues play on a matting.

It is a really tough tournament, when I came over for the first time in 2000 I was thinking ‘this league is going to be easy’ but when you play, it is very competitive. All the teams are playing really hard and it is not easy to win a championship in that league, it is a real high standard tournament. 90% of the Canadian team play in the league.

Cricket World recently did a feature on club cricket in Canada where we focused on Civics CC. What is your take on this club?

They really work hard at their training. I know this because the team that I used to play for, we all practised at the same place. They were always reaching the play offs, every year , they have a good bunch of players. They are very unfortunate, they have just missed out a few times on winning the championship, they reached the finals and they have reached finals and semi -finals many times.

Civics is one of the teams that practises really well, and practice is well organised. They have lots of youngsters coming in and they are one of the clubs that are not scared to put youngsters into the team. They are a club that help the system a lot.

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Al Barakh Twenty20 Quadrangular

October 10th: Sri Lanka v Zimbabwe, Canada v Pakistan
October 11th: Canada v Zimbabwe, Sri Lanka v Pakistan
October 12th: Pakistan v Zimbabwe, Canada v Sri Lanka
October 13th: Final & 3rd/4th Place Play-Off