LON­DON – West In­dies will open their cam­paign in the men’s ICC Un­der-19 World Cup against South Africa when the tour­na­ment bowls off in Sri Lan­ka next Jan­u­ary.

The 2016 cham­pi­ons, in­stalled in Group B, clash with the young Pro­teas on Jan­u­ary 14 at the Colom­bo Crick­et Club, on the sec­ond day of the 15th edi­tion of the glob­al show­piece which runs from Jan­u­ary 13 to Feb­ru­ary 4.

World gov­ern­ing body, the In­ter­na­tion­al Crick­et Coun­cil, un­veiled the sched­ule on Fri­day which will see 16 teams com­pet­ing across 41 match­es at five venues.

“Sri Lan­ka Crick­et is de­light­ed to be wel­com­ing this pres­ti­gious event back to Sri Lan­ka af­ter 18 years,” said tour­na­ment di­rec­tor, Saman­tha Do­dan­wela.

“Sri Lan­ka is renowned for its pas­sion­ate, crick­et-lov­ing fans, and we are look­ing for­ward to giv­ing them the op­por­tu­ni­ty to watch some of the most promis­ing young crick­eters in the world over 23 days of com­pe­ti­tion.

“The five venues se­lect­ed to host the event in Jan­u­ary and Feb­ru­ary next year have been graced by many ex­cep­tion­al­ly tal­ent­ed crick­eters over the years, and it will be fit­ting for these his­toric grounds to host the fu­ture stars of the game.

“With so much to look for­ward to, we have no doubt that the event will help show­case Sri Lan­ka as an ide­al des­ti­na­tion for crick­et.”

West In­dies take on Scot­land in their sec­ond game on Jan­u­ary 17 al­so at the Colom­bo Crick­et Club, be­fore com­ing up against old ri­vals Eng­land two days lat­er at Non­de­scripts Crick­et Club.

The Caribbean played host to the tour­na­ment last year when In­dia emerged cham­pi­ons by beat­ing Eng­land in the fi­nal at the Vi­vian Richards Crick­et Ground in An­tigua.

In­dia, who will cam­paign in Group A, open the de­fence of their ti­tle against Bangladesh on Jan­u­ary 14 at the R Pre­madasa In­ter­na­tion­al Crick­et Sta­di­um.

Group A al­so fea­tures Ire­land and the Unit­ed States, Group C com­pris­es Aus­tralia, Sri Lan­ka, Zim­bab­we and Namib­ia while Group D will see Afghanistan, Pak­istan, New Zealand and Nepal do­ing bat­tle.

A re­vised for­mat will see qual­i­fy­ing teams pro­gress­ing from the group stages to a new Su­per Six stage, which fea­tures two groups of six teams clash­ing in or­der to de­ter­mine the fi­nal four and ul­ti­mate­ly, the fi­nal­ists.

“The ICC Un­der-19 Men’s Crick­et World Cup has a long-stand­ing his­to­ry of in­tro­duc­ing glob­al au­di­ences to fu­ture stars of the sport,” said ICC’s head of events, Chris Tet­ley.

“Vi­rat Kohli, Steve Smith, Kane Williamson and An­ge­lo Math­ews are some of the names that made their en­trance on­to the world stage at this event, and we are cer­tain to see this tra­di­tion con­tin­ue as the dra­ma un­folds across the 41 tour­na­ment fix­tures.

“We are thrilled to see the com­pe­ti­tion re­turn to Sri Lan­ka for the first time since 2006, in what promis­es to be a fes­ti­val of crick­et with no short­age of en­ter­tain­ment, and we are proud to of­fer fans the chance to wit­ness the ac­tion for free once more.”

CMC