This year’s tournament is being played in Cape Town, South Africa, from March 11–24. The number of teams has increased from eight to 12 and all of the top international sides will be participating.
Hosts South Africa are likely to be the favourites, with a raft of ex-international players in their squad. Defending champions Australia, England, and Pakistan – the countries with the longest history of over-50s cricket – will start as co-favourites.
New Zealand is competing at the Over-50s World Cup for the second time. The team lost a thrilling semi-final to Australia in the first edition of the tournament, in Sydney in 2018.
Around 70 of the players in the tournament have first-class experience, with 12 having also played international cricket.
The one ex-BLACKCAP in the side is Richard Petrie, who played 12 ODIs back in the early 1990s and is now a commentator for Radio Sport. He assessed New Zealand’s chances as follows, “South Africa and Pakistan have the big names, Australia and England have the depth in numbers. Like most Kiwi teams we have to play smarter and learn faster.”
New Zealand’s captain Adrian Dale was a professional cricketer in the UK for more than a decade, playing 565 first-class and List-A matches, scoring over 18,000 runs and taking almost 500 wickets. He has already scored two centuries and a 93 this season.
The matches in Cape Town will be 45-over affairs, and each team will play seven matches: five round-robin games, followed by two playoff matches. New Zealand kicks off its campaign against a strong West Indies side on March 11, then plays Canada, Zimbabwe, Sri Lanka and Australia. The final will be held at the famous Newlands Stadium. All matches will be live-streamed, with details available at www.over50scricket.com.
The 16-man New Zealand squad was selected following an Inter-Provincial Tournament in November. They played a warm-up series against a strong New South Wales Over-50s side that toured Auckland in January.
