The International Cricket Council has announced that New Zealand all-rounder Corey Anderson will be the event ambassador for the ICC U19 Cricket World Cup 2018.
Anderson has played in the U19 World Cups of 2008 (in Malaysia) and 2010 (in New Zealand).
“The 16-team tournament that will bring together the world’s future cricket stars,” ICC said.
The tournament will be held between 13 January to 3 February across four cities and seven venues.
“It is extremely exciting to be involved again in the U19 World Cup. I played two of them – it is the first stepping stone to playing international cricket. You go from playing domestic cricket to playing international cricket – it’s a big step but it’s a step that is necessary,” Corey Anderson said.
The 26-year-old all-rounder made his international debut in 2012 and to date has scored 683 runs and bagged 16 wickets in 13 Tests, accumulated 1109 runs and grabbed 60 wickets in 49 ODIs, and has 432 runs and 14 wickets in 29 T20Is.
Anderson, who scored 324 runs in 10 matches with four half-centuries across the two editions of the tournament, has been representing New Zealand regularly in all three formats of the game.
ICC Head of Events, Chris Tetley said: “Having Corey on board is ideal because he a player who has come through this very system and hails from New Zealand. The ICC U19 World Cup is an extremely important event for us and our investment in it has been proven worthy time and again with so many top players first catching the world’s attention here.”
Present Test captains Virat Kohli of India, Steve Smith of Australia, Joe Root of England, Kane Williamson of New Zealand, Sarfraz Ahmed of Pakistan and Dinesh Chandimal of Sri Lanka have all figured in past ICC U19 World Cups.
In fact, Sarfraz’s and Kohli’s leadership abilities were first witnessed in this tournament as they led their sides to victory in the 2006 (Sri Lanka) and 2008 (Malaysia) editions, respectively. Smith, Williamson and Chandimal played in 2008, while Root participated in the 2010 tournament in New Zealand.
Some of the former stars to have graduated from the ICC U19 Cricket World Cup include Brian Lara (Windies), Michael Atherton (England), Michael Clarke (Australia), Virender Sehwag (India), Graeme Smith (South Africa) and Inzamam-ul-Haq (Pakistan), while other current players to emerge from this tournament include Quinton de Kock and AB De Villiers (South Africa), Angelo Mathews (Sri Lanka), Kuldeep Yadav (India), Babar Azam (Pakistan), Josh Hazlewood (Australia), Chris Woakes, Moeen Ali, Alastair Cook (England) and Rashid Khan (Afghanistan).
