NZC holds on to foreign teams' passports at U-19 World Cup

New Zealand Cricket (NZC) will be holding the passports of all visiting players at the upcoming Under-19 World Cup. The exercise is understood to be a precautionary measure after there were instances of players going missing at the qualifying tournament in Toronto last September.

An ICC spokesperson confirmed the developments and said the message had been communicated to the management of all teams prior to their departure, to which there were no objections. "They asked NZC to retain passports of players from certain countries, whom they considered to be a high-risk of overstaying," he told Cricinfo. "We did not feel it was fair to single out a small number of teams so NZC is holding the passports of all the teams."

During the qualifiers, seven Uganda players were unaccounted for, just before the team was due to return home from Canada. It later emerged five players and a coach of the Afghanistan squad also failed to return home with the rest of the squad, and were believed to be seeking asylum in Canada.

"Naturally, this [the Canada fiasco] has had a knock-on effect for the tournament proper in New Zealand with understandable concerns being raised by the immigration authorities that there may be a repeat occurrence," the spokesperson said. "The people at New Zealand Immigration have been extremely helpful and accommodating in ensuring that the teams taking part in the Under-19 World Cup were granted the necessary visas for the event but they did require certain assurances. All the teams understand the need to do this and it is being done in the best interests of the event and the game of cricket."

The Under-19 World Cup will kick off on January 15 with defending champions India taking on Afghanistan in the opening game at the Bert Sutcliffe Oval.