Close-knit Canada ready for biggest game of their lives
So says Canada U19s fast bowler Faisal Jamkhandi of their upcoming clash in which, following a victory over Namibia, a win might see them qualify for the Super League quarter-finals of the ICC Under 19 Cricket World Cup for the first time.
It’s a statement brimming with confidence, but it doesn’t feel arrogant; he sincerely believes it, and why shouldn’t he? Canada might have lost their opening game to Bangladesh, but they weren’t overpowered, only slightly overawed, and with batsmen in form, a varied bowling attack, and team spirit in abundance, they might yet run England close.
By rights however, the gap should be much larger – the difference between the two set-ups is enormous, as Canada head coach Farooq Qurmani points out.
“It’s a vast country,” he said. “There’s a lot of talent around but we don’t have a lot of opportunity to get everyone in the same place. Every three months they get the opportunity to practice together, once or twice in a week, and then they go back to their respective provinces. Sometimes we get the opportunity and funding to go to West Indies to play in domestic cricket, but that is not very often.”
Compare that to England, who last year played 17 one-day games as well as a Test match against international opposition. And it’s not just the amount of cricket, but the quality and variety of surfaces. England toured South Africa and India, playing at first class venues there and at home. For Canada, playing on any sort of turf wicket is to be treasured.
“Most of the time we play on matting or shale,” said Qurmani. “For the qualifying tournament we played on turf wickets, we made sure the turf was available for these guys, but it was not turf like here, it’s totally different, very poor. It’s like a dirt wicket, a little wet and everything, but you do the best you can.”
Then there’s the contrast between the backroom staffs. Canada have four – a coach, an assistant coach, an analyst, and a manager. England have 13. Off the field there’s a chasm between the two sides. But when I ask Canada’s vice-captain Akash Gill about not having specific batting or bowling coaches, it’s clear he and his teammates aren’t looking for excuses, and have nothing but admiration for those in charge of the team.
“They are great coaching staff,” he said. “We’re grateful to have them, we’re really happy with it. Our head coach and assistant coach have done their jobs really well so far. Our analyst as well is doing a fantastic job so far, and we’ve become really close with our manager Vijay, he’s like a dad away from home basically.”
The closeness extends to the group of players themselves. Despite the infrequency with which they see each other, most of the players have known each other since the age of 13, and in the words of Qurmani, “They know each other’s habits, they know each other very well”. It’s the impression I get when I sit down with four of them, captain Arslan Khan and off-spinner Rommel Shahzad as well as Jamkhandi and Gill, to talk about their journey to their upcoming clash against England, which they describe as “the biggest game of our lives so far”.
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So let’s start with how you got to this tournament, beating USA and overtaking them in the table on net run rate. What was that game like?(Shahzad took 6/39 to dismiss USA for 133, Canada chasing down the total with four wickets in hand in the final game of the ICC Americas Under 19 Cricket World Cup Qualifier)
Rommel Shahzad: The USA were just unbeatable throughout the whole tournament, but we were feeding off the energy of the crowd. It was a really hyped-up game.
Arslan Khan: I think it was probably one of the best games I’ve ever been a part of.
Akash Gill: We had a lot of support there at the ground. There was a lot of energy at the ground and all of us were backing each other, and whenever Rommel and Aran [Pathmanathan] were bowling together the pressure was on, the intensity was up. We were all amped, we were all pumped up. We wanted to win that game because it meant the world to us to come here to New Zealand.
RS: I had a good partnership with my other spinner, he was building the pressure while I was on the other end picking up wickets. The night before I was talking to my coach, and I was just feeling it. I just told my coach that I was gonna go off and that’s exactly what happened in the game.
AK: I had a nice routine too the night before as well, getting sleep and eating on time.
Sorry what?
Faisal Jamkhandi: What was the need for that?
AK: You don’t get it?
FJ: We get it but it’s an ICC frickin’ interview!
We can go off the record and you can tell me if you want?
AK: No I’ll get in trouble.
AG: Yeah, better off undisclosed.
No worries! Let’s go back to that USA game, what was the feeling like as Rommel was taking all those wickets?
AK: It meant a lot for the batsmen because the wicket we were playing on was very good for batting. Rommel and Aran restricted them very well so it took a lot of pressure off the batsmen so that we didn’t need to go all guns blazing, we could take our time, settle in, and get the runs that we needed.
It was a good batting wicket? From looking at the scorecard it seems like it was awful.
**AG:**laughs That’s what pressure does!
FJ: That was such a massive game, there was so much on the line, the nerves just got the best of both teams.
Did you feel a similar pressure during your win just now against Namibia?(Canada were 182/3 chasing 194 in the 37th over. They eventually reached their target six down at the end of the 42nd over.)
AG: We did get some memories, there was some chat where we were like, ‘this cannot be the final of the qualifiers, this is getting way too close’. We were happy that we got them under 200, the momentum going into the changing room in the innings break, the boys were up and we were all positive and ready to go right?
You showed a lot of energy on the field against Namibia, and similarly against Bangladesh. How deliberate a tactic is that?
AG: Namibia got off to a really good start, and that really made us want to make the breakthrough. We were all doing whatever we could out in the field, getting the chat up, building pressure with the dot balls. We just kept on building on that momentum, and then eventually got consecutive wickets, more dot balls, more pressure was adding up and we felt like we were on top.
AK: Another reason we played so well is we’ve known each other such a long time, so we know each other’s strengths and weaknesses, so one person will pick up for another person’s weakness and so on and so forth. We just gel very well together. It’s not like if he’s doing better you’re jealous, it’s more like you’re happy for the guy and you want to do better, you want to compete with them.
AG: It’s a family environment in this group. Me and Arsey were part of a group last year that wasn’t as connected, but this group’s become really close together. We’ve backed each other since day one. The whole group is pretty much open, we’ve got a bunch of jokers in our team. At the hotel we’ve got people popping off jokes and doing stuff like that.
RS: Popping someone’s ear you know…
At this point Rommel recounts a prank played at the team hotel which is best left unprinted, though it’s nothing more than teenagers being teenagers. But the candidness of the group is the true revelation, and it shows when I ask about their loss to Bangladesh in their opening game of the tournament. Having restricted their opponents to 264/8, Khan’s 108-ball 63 left too much ground to make up, and refreshingly, he has no qualms with taking full responsibility.
AK: Sorry, that was on me. I put a bit too much pressure on the guys coming in towards the end. I think if I had batted the way I batted today [when he scored 72 off 89], we would have been in a better position. But I still feel we played good cricket in both games.
AG: Especially in that first innings the way we restricted them to that total especially on a wicket like that and a ground like this, they had some partnerships, but we managed to get breakthroughs at the right time.
AK: I think as a team we’re a lot better in our batting but in these first two games we’ve bowled a lot better than we’ve batted, which allows our batsman to come out without pressure.
FJ: We were always in it. Especially restricting a Test-playing nation down to 280 on a ground like this on a wicket like that we were pretty confident we could chase that down.
AK: Yeah we’ve played on wickets worse than that and we’ve scored more.
FJ: Being a World Cup stage there is a lot of pressure on everybody’s shoulders to come out and perform every game. We have experience of chasing big totals but it’s just being at this stage, for some of us it’s a different feeling, and experiencing it for the first time, pressure is the name of the game.
Will that be the big thing against England, handling the pressure?
FJ: I don’t think there’s honestly going to be a huge difference in skill between us and England, it’ll be the guys who want it more the guys that are more disciplined about it. We’ve just got to play good cricket, make as few mistakes as we can and I think we’ve got that game in the bag.
What would a win, and passage to the quarter-finals mean for you?
FJ: It would be amazing, huge, the best feeling. The first time for Canada.
Will it be the most important game you’ve ever played?
FJ: I’m speaking for myself here, but probably for most of us as well this is the biggest game that we’ve played. Qualifying for the Super 8 at a World Cup? That’s going to be one of the biggest games of our lives!
How interested are people back home?
AK: I got ripped on for the last game. They made sure that I knew that they were upset about it. It’s good though, I don’t know about these guys, but I find it very uplifting and positive that there’s people watching, wanting us to do good. So you just put your heart on your sleeve, go out there, and give 100 per cent.
The Canada under 19 team say hello from New Zealand.
AG: Just having those 15-20 family members, parents and all of them just supporting us, doing whatever they can, cheering us on, it’s a huge feeling.
RS: Even just 15-20 people that are supporting us it just felt amazing right?
AG: That’s exactly what I just said bro!
Is cricket a big sport in Canada then?
RS: Cricket’s growing there, it wasn’t big a while ago, but the community is building up, kids are coming out to the ground. I moved to Canada recently, to Alberta, and I wasn’t expecting cricket in Canada. But when I asked my parents to look for grounds or whatever teams there are, it turns out it was a pretty good community.
FJ: It’s growing exponentially.
AG: I think it’s grown substantially in the last four or five years, and it hasn’t grown in patches, it’s grown massively. People are coming to the grounds, there’s more grounds being built in Mississauga, in Brampton, and stuff like that. The sport is growing, and I think it’s gonna progress to the next level.
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Canada still face a huge task to qualify. It will take a sizeable win, by about 80 runs or with 15 overs or so remaining. England are a high-quality outfit, having notched two comfortable wins in their first two games. Canada will also have to find a way past Harry Brook who in three innings since arriving in New Zealand has scored 261 runs off 226 balls without being dismissed. Removing the emotion – how desperate as a fan and a journalist you want them to win for the narrative – you have to conclude that Canada probably won’t qualify for the quarter-finals.
And if they don’t, it would be easy for an observer to look at the results, which show no Associate member qualifying for the quarter-finals or even – as yet – beating a Full Member, to see some of the record totals and huge victory margins and conclude that they are just here to make up the numbers.
But to do that would be to miss the point entirely. Giving young players who otherwise wouldn’t be able to attend a tournament like this a chance is exactly what the ICC Under 19 Cricket World Cup should be about. The experience will be invaluable to them as cricketers for sure – if they played that match against Bangladesh again, with just the extra knowledge they’ve gained in two games, you’d fancy them to win – but also as young men looking to make their way in the world.
And who knows, Canada may yet pull of a huge shock. As their coach Qurmani says, “There’s always hope. Cricket is a game where if you play your best game and you catch the other team off-guard, anything can happen”. It would certainly be some story. But then again, isn’t it already?