Young bowler is raring to go

Right-handed seam bowler Burton Jacobs, 18, and leg-spin bowler Francois Rautenbach, 18, from Walvis Bay have been included in the Namibian squad that will compete at the 2016 ICC Under-19 Cricket World Cup an international limited-overs cricket tournament to be held in Bangladesh from January 22 to February 14. The eleventh edition of the Under-19 Cricket World Cup is the second to be held in Bangladesh after the event was staged there in 2004 and will be Burton’s first Cricket World Cup experience. Namibia is placed in Group A and will play Scotland (January 29), South Africa (January 31) and Bangladesh (February 2). Burton left for a week-long training camp with his teammates in Windhoek on January 6. After that the team will depart for a fine-tuning session at the High Performance Centre in Pretoria, South Africa. Burton started playing cricket at the age of 10 while attending Narraville Primary School, with John Heynes and Justice Hangula as his coaches. He represented Namibia from U/11 age level at various competitions in South Africa and took more than 112 wickets. Over time he developed into a consistent bowler capable of anticipating opposing batsmen’s moves and devising means to trap them. He played club cricket in the EBH T20 League for the Junior Coastal Cricket Academy, and joined Blue Waters Cricket Club in 2015. He has played five matches for Blue Waters and taken 11 wickets in the current season. “I would like to play cricket in England, at Yorkshire where many former English test cricketers are involved, to accumulate experience and develop my technique. “Cricket helped me to be disciplined, to make right choices and taught me to stand my ground,” he says. The World Cup will be contested by the national under-19 teams of 16 International Cricket Council (ICC) members, and all matches played will hold under-19 One Day International (ODI) status. Ten teams qualified automatically for the tournament through their status as ICC full members, while five others qualified by winning regional qualifying events. Namibia with Norbert Manyande as coach qualified as champion of the 2015 ICC Africa Under-19 Championship Division One held in Dar es Salaam, Tanzania, from February 14 to 20, 2015. Namibia won the tournament (its fifth overall, and third consecutive) on points. Cricket Australia announced that the Australian U19 squad had pulled out of the tournament, citing security concerns. Ireland confirmed that it would replace Australia. OTIS FINCK