World Cup 2007: Review of Cricket Teams - Canada

History : Though the general reference to start of cricket in Canada is said to be made by British soldiers after the Battle of Plains of Abraham in 1759, the earliest confirmed reference to cricket is of matches played on Saint Helen's Island,Quebec in 1785. The roots of modern cricket in Canada comes from the regions of Upper Canada, in particular Toronto. During the early years of the nineteenth century,George Barber encouraged the game there, and founded the Toronto Cricket Club in 1827. Barber instigated a game played between the Toronto Cricket Club and the cricket team of Upper Canada College in 1836.This game has been annually ever since. Canada played its first international against USA in 1844 in Newyork at St George's Cricket Club.

NOW: The Canadian Cricket Team is the national cricket team of Canada, and the best cricket team in North America. The Canadian Cricket Team is an Associate Member of the International Cricket Council (ICC), and has the official one-day international (ODI) status until the 2009 ICC Trophy. Canada has already participated in two of the world cups - first in 1979 and again in 2003, with no success on both occasions. But Canada has performed comparatively well in the ICC Trophy tournaments, where they were runners-up in 1979, and finished on 3rd place in 2001 and 2005. The Canadian cricket team has many good cricketers, including the captain John Davison. Andy Pick is the coach of the Canadian Cricket Team for ICC World Cup 2007.

The Buildup: The Canada Cricket Team is scheduled to play several ODIs before 2007 ICC Cricket World Cup as part of their build up to the mega event. In January a tri-series against Kenya and Scotland in Mombassa, Kenya. The team then travel to nairobi to take part in the Division one tournament of the ICC World Cricket League where they will play Bermuda, Ireland, Kenya, Netherlands and Scotland. Their World Cup build up continues with a tri-series against Bangladesh and Bermuda in Antigua just prior to the World Cup itself.

Current Players:

JM Davison (Captain)
IS Billcliff
DR Chumney
Nicholas Alexander de Groot
Ashish Bagai
Austin Codrington
O Henry
GR Codrington
Nicholas Ifill
Davis Joseph
Abdul Fazil Sattar
Sanjayan Thuraisivgam
Sunil Dhaniram
KT Sandher
DES Maxwell
PB Dassanayake
HS Dhillon
Umar Bhatti

Group Chances: Canada is placed in Group C of the ICC World Cup 2007 groupings, along with England, New Zealand and Kenya. The team will start its 2007 World Cup campaign against Kenya on March 14, 2007 in Saint Lucia. The chances of Canada winning even one of its matches is Bleak but still, if they put their heart and soul to the game, you never know Cricket is a game of chance.

Best of the Players:

Captain John Michael Davison is the best batsman of the canadian team, his best ODI batting score of 111 was made against Windies at Centurion in, 2003 World Cup. He along with other Batsmen like Umar Bhatti and Ashish Bagai (Wicket Keeper) need to fire to give any sort of fight to the other teams. They have a pretty decent bowling attck, which is being led by Austin Codrington who bowls Right arm fast medium and can also be useful with the bat at the death overs of a match.His fielding is also very good, particularly his catching.

Records:

ICC Trophy Appearances 8 (First in 1979)
Best result Runners up, 1979

One-day Internationals

ODI matches played 19
ODI wins/losses 3/16

Other teams
Test playing Nations : India | Pakistan | West Indies | Sri Lanka | New Zealand | South Africa | England | Australia
Non test playing Nations : Canada | Bermuda | Scotland | Zimbabwe | Kenya | The Netherlands | Ireland | Bangladesh
Who will win Cricket world cup 2007?