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The Cook Islands Cricket Team played a friendly match against the New Zealand Knights last Saturday. CB SPORTS OFFICIAL/24080706
The Cook Islands Cricket Association has confirmed the men’s national team for Group A of the ICC East Asia Pacific Qualifiers to be held in Apia, Samoa from August 16 to 24.
As part of its preparations for the Asia-Pacific qualifiers, the national team played a couple of friendly matches against the New Zealand Knights in Rarotonga last week.
The four Rarotongan players who took part in the friendly, Tim (Teaomua) Anker, Pita Ravarua, Tiaki Wuatai and Tomakanute Ritawa, travelled to Auckland with head coach Craig Murray to join other national team members based in New Zealand before travelling to Samoa this week.
The New Zealand players include: Ma’ara Ave (captain), Liam Denny, Cory Dickson, Hayden Dickson, Milton Kavana (vice-captain), Aue Parima, Thomas Parima, Andrew Samuels, Oscar Taylor and Jared Tutty.
“We are very confident. We had a very good run in 2022. We were still in contention on the last day but it rained and the tournament was called off. So we felt we had some unfinished business and yes, I think we performed better this time. We hope to get a really good result in Samoa,” said coach Murray.
Cook Islands Cricket Association president Grant Walker said the team would compete to qualify for the Asia and East Asia Pacific T20 World Cup regional qualifiers in 2025.
The winner will join the EAP Division Group B winners, the four Asian Division qualifiers, plus Nepal, Oman and Papua New Guinea.
Three of these nine teams will qualify for the 2026 T20 World Cup to be held in India and Sri Lanka.
The Cook Islands team will be ably assisted by team manager Rahul Patil and team physiotherapist Blake Taylor.
“The New Zealand training team and the Cook Islands team have been preparing for this event for months. We are confident that this team will showcase the talent and passion of the Cook Islands and make the country proud,” Walker said.
The team left Auckland for Samoa on Monday. The Cook Islands will play their first match against Vanuatu on August 16 at 10:30am (Cook Islands time).
Walker said Vanuatu are the highest ranked team in the tournament but they remain confident.
The Cook Islands will face Fiji and hosts Samoa in their remaining matches.
The six matches will be held in icc.tv.
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