Under-19 World Cup officially opens

The Under-19 World Cup in Sri Lanka was officially opened on Sunday and was hailed by the ICC chief executive, Malcolm Speed, as an event which has "truly come of age".

The tournament, which comprises 16 teams from around the world, will stage 44 matches in 15 days at five different venues. The final, at the R.Premadasa Stadium, will be played under lights on February 19.

"From humble beginnings in 1988 when it took place, for the most part, in country areas of Australia and involved just eight teams, through a ten year hiatus before the concept was revived in South Africa in 1998, this tournament has come a long way," Speed said at the opening ceremony.

"This tournament will see the Super League semi-finals and final broadcast on television with a possible global audience of hundreds of millions of people," he said. "Supporters will be following the matches in any way they can, through television, radio, newspapers and the internet and as an event there is no doubt it has truly come of age."

Speed added that the tournament's key attraction was to witness the future stars of cricket; many players use the Under-19 tournament as a stepping stone to success at a senior level.

"When it was last held in Sri Lanka, in 2000, two of the stars of the tournament were Yuvraj Singh of India and South Africa's Graeme Smith," he said. Six years on and this week Yuvraj scored a hundred in the white-hot atmosphere of a Pakistan-India Test match while Graeme has been captaining his country in Australia.

"There are plenty more examples of players who have done well in the ICC U/19 CWC before going on to success at Test and ODI level and that illustrates how important this tournament is to the future of the game."

While the tournament features the usual ICC members - countries such as England, West Indies and India - it also enables smaller countries, and associate members, to showcase their skills on the world stage; a youth tournament for countries such as Nepal, Namibia, Scotland, Ireland and the United States will jostle for space among the more familiar nations.

Speed doesn't doubt the talent which lies in the less prominent cricketing nations, and is quietly confident that one or two sides might receive a shock in the next two weeks:

"Given the way many of the warm-up matches have gone ahead of the tournament it would be a brave person to suggest we will not have an Associate side beating a Full Member over the next 15 days.

"This ICC U/19 CWC allows those Associates to advance their cricket by exposing their young players to intense competition at a point where their games are still being moulded," he said. That exposure is gradually reaping rewards at all levels. Two years ago Ireland and Scotland reached the semi-finals of the Plate competition while Nepal beat South Africa."