Canadian-based Montfort set to make international debut

By Ravi Madholall in Toronto

Versatile all-rounder Mark Montfort is set to make his international debut later this month for Canada where he will be participating in the upcoming International Cricket Council (ICC) Division 3 limited-over tournament set to be held in Uganda this month.

Montfort, who represented Demerara at the Guyana Cricket Board senior Inter-county level, played for Guyana National Industrial Corporation first-division team before his migration to North America.

His fellow compatriot and former Guyana youth player Dillon Heyliger has missed out on selection because he hasn’t lived enough days to be eligible to represent his adopting country.

Both Montfort and Heyliger represented Canada in international friendly matches against Bermuda in and out of Canada while Heyliger also featured for the Canadian side against USA in the annual bilateral one-day competition last year.

Canada will take on the hosts in the opening encounter on May 23 before facing off with Oman, Malaysia, USA and Singapore. If they come out as one of the top two teams, Canada will advance to Division two and once come out as one of the top teams again, they will be heading to the ICC World Cup Qualifiers to be held in Bangladesh in 2018 in preparations for the mega event the following year in England.

Montfort, who has been trading his skills professionally in Canada for the past six consecutive years donning the colours of top-club (JB) Brampton Masters, stated he is excited to be named in the final squad for this showpiece.

“I [am] overwhelmed with the selection and I am looking forward to do well for Canada; I have been working very hard on my game and now getting the opportunity to play at a high level like this is certainly a joy,” the left-handed batsman and right-arm medium-pacer declared.

Constantly acknowledged as one of the country’s brightest prospects, Nitish Kumar will lead the team and will have a mixture of youth and experience in the lineup. Kumar is currently in UK playing professionally but will link up with the team in Zimbabwe where they will have four warm-up matches. Kumar, a leg-spinner, also appeared in the Caribbean Premier League in 2016 featuring for St. Kitts and Nevis Patriots and captained the Americas team at the regional Super50 tournament earlier 2017.

Cricket Canada also named their two standby players and they will be part of the travelling side. According to the ICC’s selection policy, only 14 players could have been submitted. The 16-member squad together with the management team is expected to depart Toronto in in five days straight to Zimbabwe to intensify their preparations.

The full squad reads: Nitish Kumar (Captain), Bhavindu Adhihetty, Cecil Pervez, Dhanuka Pathirana, Durand Soraine, Hamza Tariq, Jimmy Hansra, Junaid Siddiqui, Mark Montfort, Navneet Dhaliwal, Nikhil Dutta, Rizwan Cheema, Saad Zafar and Satsimranjit Dhindsa.

Reserves are: Srimanta Wijeyeratne and Varun Sehdev.

Management: Henry Osinde – Coach, Daulat Khan – Asst. Coach and Ingleton Liburd – Manager.