There was not much to write home about as far as the Under19 teams from the Associate nations at the World Cup are concerned, bar a few individuals spurts of brilliance. But it was an eventful week as in a first of its kind buy, Nepali cricketer Sandeep Lamichhane was picked up in the IPL auction. On the other end of the news spectrum, the controversy laden Ajman All-Stars T20 was duly scrapped, although the ICC never recognised it in the first place. There was more from the week that has gone by but the upcoming week promises a lot of movement too, with the premier T20 tournament among the associates - Hong Kong T20 Blitz starting. There's also the exciting ICE Cricket - the T20 exhibition to be played on the frozen lake - St Moritz. But the most prominent if not as popular an event, it would be the start of the World Cricket League Division 2 where six teams will make their final attempts at qualifying for next month's World Cup Qualifier in Zimbabwe.
IPL joy for Nepal; an U19 WC to forget for Associates
Here's what has gone by and what lies ahead:
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The most high-profile action involving Associates in the past couple of weeks was of course at the Under-19 World Cup, and it must be said that the Associates overall had a pretty tough tournament. Canada were the only ones to finish above a Full Member in the final standings, beating newly-promoted Ireland to 12th place, whilst Namibia, Kenya and PNG filled out the bottom of the table.
There were positives to be found in some individual performances though, notably Canada's right-arm quick Faisal Jamkhandi, who finished as the joint-leading wicket taker at the tournament, and Akash Gill, whose all-round efforts saw him take 12 wickets and notch up 254 runs, only to be rather overshadowed by the exploits of his Indian namesake. Namibia's Petrus Burger and Lohan Louwrens also impressed sufficiently to earn senior call-ups, but generally speaking, it was a disappointing showing from the non-Test nations.
In other news, the formats for both the women's and men's WT20s, to be held in Australia in 2020, were announced last week. From an Associate's perspective, improvements were marginal - the women's event remains a 10-team tournament with two qualifier spots on offer, whilst the men's version has been expanded from a nominally 14-team event to a nominally 16-team event, though as before Associate sides will have to compete in an additional qualifying round to reach the main 12-team group stage.
Meanwhile the United States' new-look squad has been struggling in Antigua, where they have been competing in the West Indies Regional Super-50 competition. Two heavy defeats - by 162 runs to the Leeward Islands and by 8 wickets to Guyana - leave them languishing at the bottom of Group B, with a solid showing in both games by newcomer Xavier Marshall the only real consolation.
Still more regrettable was the news that the ICC Anti-Corruption Unit reckons there is "strong evidence" to suggest that a private league in the UAE, the
