The Christchurch Press The Best of New Zealand News on the Internet.

Black Caps must qualify

The Christchurch Press

24 August 1998


New Zealand Cricket chief Chris Doig is comfortable with the Black Caps having to play a preliminary match against Zimbabwe at the Wills International Cup tournament in Dhaka in October and November.

New Zealand and Zimbabwe are the only teams having to play an elimination match to find a quarter-finalist at the knock-out tournament, in which the nine test-playing nations are taking part.

Doig said although he thought New Zealand's one-day ranking was above eight or nine in the world he felt it beneficial that New Zealand could get more matches in the conditions.

``In another draw I saw it had us meeting Australia first in the main pool. This would seem to be better.''

The winner of the Zimbabwe-New Zealand match faces world one-day champion Sri Lanka.

Doig was uncertain how the draw had been done or what rankings had been used.

Schedule:

24 Oct: Pre quarter-final. - New Zealand v Zimbabwe.
25 Oct: Quarter-final. - England v South Africa.
26 Oct: Quarter-final. - Sri Lanka v winner of New Zealand v Zimbabwe.
28 Oct: Quarter-final. - Australia v India.
29 Oct: Quarter-final. - Pakistan v West Indies.
30 Oct: Semi-final - Winner of England v South Africa v winner of Sri Lanka v New Zealand or Zimbabwe.
31 Oct: Semi-final - Winner of Australia v India v winner of Pakistan v West Indies.
1 Nov: Final (Reserve day -- November 2).


Source: The Christchurch Press
Editorial comments can be sent to The Christchurch Press at press@press.co.nz
Contributed by CricInfo Management
help@cricinfo.com

Date-stamped : 24 Aug1998 - 06:50