Tony Munro
The latest regional qualifying tournament for the World Cricket League kicks off on Friday when Americas Division Three involving hosts, Chile, Belize, Brazil and Peru commences in Santiago.
There'll be a touch of deja vu for three of the four teams - Chile, Brazil and Peru. This will be the third tournament where they have met in 12 months. Last October, all four teams met when Americas Division Three was staged, while the South American Championships brought three of the teams together earlier this year.
Chile go into the tournament arguably as favourites due to a combination of home advantage and recent results against the same opposition - they finished above these three teams in the corresponding tournament last year, and ahead of Brazil and Peru at the South American Championships.
Three of the four teams have locally born players in their squad - Belize, adjacent to the Caribbean, is totally home grown; Brazil has five and Chile four.
Chile are led by last year s Player-of-the-Tournament, Simon Chalders, in a squad which contains five all-rounders - Ian Walker, Jim Scarbrough and Michael Meade, Thomas Dawes and Christian Eyzaguirre. Spinner Pablo Mejias and opening bowler Tristan Bradbrook are the other two locally born players in the squad.
Peru are hopeful of at least equalling their one win in last year's Americas Division Three tournament, thanks to a training schedule which is aimed at increasing their players agility in areas such as running between wickets.
There is further information about the Belize and Brazil squads here.
Draw:
Friday, October 9 - Chile v Peru, Belize v Brazil
Saturday, October 10 - Chile v Brazil, Belize v Peru
Monday, October 12 - Chile v Belize, Peru v Brazil
Chile: Simon Chalders (Capt.), Guy Hooper, Michael Meade, Ian Walker, James Scarborough, Stephen Foot, Kamran Zeb, Joseph Williams, Tristan Bradbrook, John Fecci, Pablo Meijias, Christian Hesketh, Christian Eyzaguirre, Thomas Dawes
Peru: Miles Buesst (Capt.), Harry Hildebrand, Chris Abbott, Julian Walter, Anthony Sanford, Simon Walter, John Bell, Manoj Rana, Nadeem Ansari, Dinesh Ekanayake, Hans de Wit, Chris Hodgson, Michael Soulsby.