Young talent gets chance to impress ahead of World Cup

After almost two years of interrupted schedules and an absence of national underage representative cricket, Australia's best under-19 talent will get one last chance to impress early next month ahead of this summer's U19 World Cup.

Twenty-nine players from across the country will do battle in a series of practice matches in Adelaide on December 6, 7 and 9 for a chance to be included in the squad to travel to the West Indies in January.

Several other players, such as 17-year-old Teague Wyllie, who scored 112 and 79 for Western Australia second XI last month, and 18-year-old Cooper Connolly, will also play in a second XI clash between WA and Tasmania in Perth at the same time, meaning selection won't be exclusive to those gathered in Adelaide.

For many of the nation's brightest prospects it may be the first time they will get to showcase their skills in front of National Talent & Pathways Manager Graham Manou after a turbulent 18 months throughout the pandemic that caused the cancellation of various underage national championships.

But luckily for them, the former Test wicketkeeper has trawled through hours and hours of match footage from club and state pathway matches to track the development of the country's best under-19 male talent.

"We've certainly missed the national competition," Manou said.

"The benefit of our system has been the take up and enthusiasm of premier cricket clubs across the country with technology.

"Now that most clubs are live streaming their cricket matches, it's given us an opportunity to get more eyes more often on a heap of players and not necessarily just the ones that we've had on a list either.

"That's brought a new positive level to how we're identifying players and probably being more inclusive too in our identification process.

"That's the beauty of our cricket system. We've got fantastic club competitions and then state programs, international programs and the staff around the pathways are very good in terms of sharing information around where their players and programs are at."

The 42-year-old said being able to watch the nation's next generation of players gave coaches the context of the performance.

"It's just not a scorecard and that's so important," Manou said.

"They're great coaching opportunities for the coach to be able to reflect, sit back and understand what the player was thinking at different times."

Ground staff will look to replicate conditions the team could face in the Caribbean in the three 50-over practice matches by playing on the same pitch to allow it to deteriorate to facilitate spin by the third game. Manou also hopes one of the matches will be a day-night fixture.

Australia is set to face off against the hosts in the opening game of the U19 World Cup on January 14 at Guyana National Stadium, with Sri Lanka and Scotland also pooled in group D.

Australia has a proud history in under-19 World Cups, having won three titles, including the 2010 tournament in New Zealand with a squad that featured T20 World Cup winners Josh Hazlewood, Adam Zampa, Mitch Marsh and Kane Richardson.

"We've got quite a proud history of our under-19 World Cup squads, firstly, going on and representing their country or playing first-class cricket and having a very good first-class career," Manou said.

"We very much philosophically have a view of it's nice to win … but our role is to make sure that we're trying to invest in the long-term future of as many as we can."

The male and female under-19 national championships are slated to return this season just prior to Easter in April next year, and Manou said just because a player may miss their opportunity this World Cup, there were "multiple entry and exit points" in cricket.

"There's strong desire to maintain a national competition by all the states and Cricket Australia," Manou said.

"It's not ideal in terms of how it correlates to the U19 World Cup, but the great thing is for the April opportunity we're working with the ECB about possible opportunities in the next year to have them come to Australia and then our squad go to England to test themselves in those conditions.

"There'll be plenty of opportunities for those that are still eligible that might miss out on the World Cup this year."