GEORGE­TOWN, Guyana – West In­dies Ris­ing Stars will hope to turn the page on a spell of in­dif­fer­ent form and start their ICC Un­der-19 Crick­et World Cup cam­paign on a win­ning note when they face mul­ti­ple-time cham­pi­ons Aus­tralia Un­der-19s on Fri­day.

The hosts have lost four of their last six out­ings in­side the last few weeks, draw­ing their four-match se­ries with South Africa Un­der-19s, 2-2, and then los­ing their two warm-up games to In­dia Un­der-19s and the South Africans this week.

Sig­nif­i­cant­ly, the per­for­mances have been high­light­ed by brit­tle bat­ting, es­pe­cial­ly in the South Africa se­ries, leav­ing sev­er­al ques­tion marks over the side.

How­ev­er, head coach Floyd Reifer on Thurs­day tried to put those con­cerns to rest, con­tend­ing the string of poor re­sults had not neg­a­tive­ly im­pact­ed the side’s mood ahead of the open­er at the Guyana Na­tion­al Sta­di­um.

“The con­fi­dence of the team is still in a very good place. You use warm-up games to see where you’re at as a team,” Reifer told an on­line pre-match me­dia con­fer­ence.

“Ob­vi­ous­ly be­fore we did a lot of camps and we hadn’t played many games to­geth­er as a unit, so we used these games to kind of see where the guys are at, to see how they can per­form their roles and re­spon­si­bil­i­ties un­der pres­sure.

“So I would say the team is very con­fi­dent still and it’s just a mat­ter now of just putting it to­geth­er with a good game to­mor­row.”

Cap­tain Ac­k­eem Au­guste and open­er Matthew Nan­du were the on­ly bats­men to man­age half-cen­turies dur­ing the warm-ups while the likes of fast bowlers McKen­ny Clarke and Jo­hann Layne im­pressed with wick­ets.

And Au­guste said he was not over­ly fazed ei­ther by the lack of re­sults, as the squad re­mained a qual­i­ty unit ca­pa­ble of strong per­for­mances.

“I think the en­thu­si­asm from the guys has been good. I think we have been gelling well as a unit and I think mov­ing for­ward we are very con­fi­dent as a unit,” he not­ed.

“I think we’re a very tal­ent­ed bunch so I think every­body in the team can hold their weight. The team is full of qual­i­ty bats­men and bowlers and a good field­ing unit, so over­all we’re very con­fi­dent.”

West In­dies topped their group in the 2020 show­piece in South Africa but then bowed out in the next round in a shock de­feat to New Zealand.

The Caribbean side, who won the ti­tle in 2016, even­tu­al­ly fin­ished fifth over­all af­ter their fifth-place play­off against the Aus­tralians was rained off.

Aus­tralia, whose sixth-place fin­ish was a dis­ap­point­ment, said they were aim­ing for a strong start, de­spite their heavy loss to In­dia in their warm-up.

“[The de­feat] was a re­al­i­ty check for us against one of the strongest sides, maybe the favourite. But our team is check­ing out re­al­ly well and I feel like we’re in good shape for the first game,” said cap­tain Coop­er Con­nol­ly.

“We can’t start off re­al­ly easy, we’ve got to beat the West In­dies and come out with a strong mind­set. Hope­ful­ly, we can knock them over.”

The con­test is one of two in Group D on an open­ing day, with Sri Lan­ka Un­der-19s and Scot­land Un­der-19s clash­ing at Ever­est.

SQUADS

WEST IN­DIES U19s – Ac­k­eem Au­guste (cap­tain), Giovonte De­peiza, On­a­je Amory, Ted­dy Bish­op, Car­lon Bowen-Tuck­ett, Jaden Carmichael, McKen­ny Clarke, Ri­val­do Clarke, Jor­dan John­son, Jo­hann Layne, An­der­son Ma­hase, Matthew Nan­du, Shaqkere Par­ris, Shi­va Sankar, Isai Thorne.

AUS­TRALIA U19s – Coop­er Con­nol­ly (cap­tain), Harki­rat Ba­jwa, Aidan Cahill, Joshua Gar­ner, Isaac Hig­gins, Camp­bell Kell­away, Corey Miller, Jack Nis­bet, Nivethan Rad­hakr­ish­nan, William Salz­mann, Lach­lan Shaw, Jack­son Sin­field, To­bias Snell, Tom Whit­ney, Teague Wyl­lie.

(CMC)