Holiday Inn Resort Vanuatu Women’s Cricket team is departing by the end of this week for the ICC World Cup Qualifier 2024 World Cup Round in Dubai.
The Vanuatu Women’s team earned this spot during the East Pacific Regional tournament held in Vanuatu last year when they defeated Papua New Guinea, ranked 15th in the T20 World ranking.
In an exclusive interview with VBTC Sports, Vanuatu Cricket Association CEO, Tim Cuttler, mentioned that this is a one-time high-level experience for the girls, marking their first appearance in a World Cup qualifying stage.
-“Eight (8) of the girls have been in Australia working at the company – Icomply and continuing their training ahead of the competitions.
“The head coach, Joshua Rasu, left two weeks earlier to meet the girls in Australia and prepare for the tournaments next week,” Cuttler told VBTC Sports.
Meanwhile, the other few players based in Port Vila were in their final training sessions last week before departing this week.
“The girls will depart from Port Vila tomorrow, Friday the 19th of April, to Brisbane to meet the other half of the team and their head coach, Rasu, and off to Abu Dhabi.
Mr. Cuttler also mentioned that, during their stay in Dubai prior to the tournament, they will compete in two international friendly matches against Uganda and an interesting match against the world-ranked number eight (8), Sri Lanka.
“This would be a good preparation ahead of the tournament, where we will meet Zimbabwe next week on the 25th of April,” the CEO told VBTC Sports.
Holiday Inn Resort Vanuatu women’s team will play 4 games in this tournament, the first game against Zimbabwe, the second match with Netherlands, and later will play Ireland in the third game, and finally, UAE will be their last game, to see if they can make it through to the semifinals.
These four countries were ranked below the top 10 in the world.
CEO Cuttler is very proud of his girls who made it to the World Cup qualifying round, which is a very good experience for the girls, especially the young players.
Mr. Cuttler acknowledges the support from sponsors and donations from individuals with sporting gear and funds, and the Minister responsible for sports, Hon. Tomker Netvunei, for making it possible to sort out the passports before departure, as well as everyone who supported Vanuatu Cricket through this world tournament.
