Cricket Hong Kong have announced a squad of 14 players to compete at the Women’s East Asia Cup tournament to be held in Korea from the 18th-23rd September, 2019. The East Asia Cup is a Quadrangular Tournament between China, Hong Kong, Japan and Korea. The tournament is held every two years. Teams will play each other once in a round-robin format with the top two teams progressing to the final and the bottom two teams playing off for third place.

The tournament will also be the first tournament for the squad under the guidance of recently appointed Head Coach, Chris Pickett. He had this to say “This East Asia Cup Tournament is the first step in a new phase for the National Women where we are looking to build a pool of players for the future. With the big targets ahead of us being Asia Cup qualification in 2020 and then in 2022 the Asian Games in China. Although no qualification is riding on this tournament it is still as important as any other especially as being the current holders, we want to defend our title.”

After strong performances domestically Shanzeen Shazad returns to the squad as does Emma Lai. Dorethea Chan is one of the new faces who will be touring for the first time after showing promise in the domestic Leagues and working hard over the off-season. The recent retirement of Jenifer Davies sees Lemon Cheung progress to taking over the wicket-keeping duties.

The other notable change will see Kary Chan take over the captaincy duties from Mariko Hill. After review it was felt that with our next major qualifying tournament almost 12 months away there was an opportunity to start succession planning to ensure we have more players capable of taking on leadership roles or captaining the squad if required in the future.

In the next few weeks leading up to the tournament the squad will continue their training programmes as well as having fixtures in the U15 league and with their respective club teams in the Women’s League.

Tournament Schedule:

19th September Hong Kong v China

20th September Hong Kong v Japan

21st September Hong Kong v Korea

22nd September Final / 3rd Place play-off.

Squad:

Kary Chan (C) Chan Ka Ying CCC Fung Wong

Pull To (VC) To Yee Shan CCC Fung Wong

Yasmin Daswani HKCC Willow Wielders

Bella Poon Poon Boo Yee CCC Fung Wong

Mariko Hill HKCC Willow Wielders

Ruchitha Venkatesh HKCC Cavaliers

Lemon Cheung Haya Cheung Chui Ying HKCC Cavaliers

Mahreen Yousaf LSW Wasps

Alison Siu Siu Mei Wai HKCC Cavaliers

Betty Chan Chan Ka Man HKCC Cavaliers

Maryam Bibi LSW Wasps

Emma Lai Lai Wing Ki HKCC Cavaliers

Shanzeen Shahzad LSW Wasps

Dorothea Chan Chan Shing Yan CCC Fung Wong