Cricket with Dalchand Bissoon

The Canadian 15-man squad for the ICC World Twenty20 Qualifier has been released by the International Cricket Council.

The full squad: Rizwan Cheema, (captain), Saad Bin Zafar, Khurram Chohan, Navneet Dhaliwal, Satsimranji Dhindsa, Nikhill Dutta, Jeremy Gordon, Ruvindu Gunasekera, Amarbir Hansra, Shaheed Keshvani, Nitish Kumar, Cecil Pervez, Junaid Siddiqui, Hamza Tariq and Srimantha Wijeyeratne.

The tournament which consists of 51 matches will be staged in Ireland and Scotland from July 9-26.

The 14 countries participating in the tournament are Afghanistan, Canada, Hong Kong, Ireland, Jersey, Kenya, Namibia, Nepal, Netherlands, Oman, Papua New Guinea, Scotland, United Arab Emirates and USA.

The teams will be divided into two groups. Group A:  Ireland, Nepal, Hong Kong, Papua New Guinea, Namibia, USA and newcomer Jersey. Group B: Afghanistan, UAE, Netherlands, Scotland, Canada, Kenya and Oman.

The top six teams will join the 10 full members for the ICC World Twenty20 to be held in India March 11 to April 3, 2016.

The  top two teams from each group will automatically qualify while the teams that finish second and third in each of the two groups will play cross-over matches with the two winners joining the table-toppers for the India tournament.

In the opening matches on July 9 in Group B Scotland will play United Arab Emirates and Afghanistan will face the Netherlands in Edinburgh.

Canada will play their first match in Group B against Kenya on July 10 at Myreside, Edinburgh.

The two semi-finals are scheduled for July 25 in Dublin and the final on July 26 also at the Village, Malahide, Dublin.