14 PNG Players take Gold Coast Scholarships

Ten men and four ladies from PNG will be departing for Gold Coast, Australia for six months as part of the Brian Bell future stars scholarship for men and Pacific MMI Scholarship for the women.

Eight of the ten men will be travelling with the Hebou Barramundi's to Bundaberg for the Queensland Rail Bulls Masters T20 Country Challenge that will be held this weekend and will then head to Gold Coast after the tournament.

For the past three seasons, the Brian Bell Future Stars Scholarships has seen the players being sent to play a season in Melbourne, Australia. It has been a successful stint for Cricket PNG as the players have been exposed to a high standard of cricket over the six month period.

Previous seasons has seen the PNG players perform extremely well for their respective clubs with a couple of the players going on to win their club's batting and the MVP awards.

Last season saw Charles Amini Jnr pick up the Senior Club Champion award for Royal Park/Brunswick Cricket Club (Melbourne) whilst speedster Willie "Steam Train" Gavera picked up the Bowling Average for the first grade for the same club. Assad Vala won the batting award for his club, Broadmeadows Cricket Club and Barramundi's opening bowler, Joel Tom won the Bowling Award for his club, Kingston Saints. Jason Kila also won the batting award for his club Box Hill as he topped the runs aggregate.

It will be a different environment all together for this season as the ten men are in four different clubs and will be playing against each other in the Gold Coast cricket competition. The four ladies will be playing for the Gold Coast Dolphins who are in the Brisbane District competition and will be up against quality players. Head coach, Peter Anderson will be working very closely with the fourteen players, and they will go through a rigorous training schedule over the six months that includes a lot of skill and fitness work with a couple of matches each month where all fourteen players will come together to compete in the WEBB Shield.

"It will be a different setup to that of Melbourne. It will be a lot easier to get around and the boys will have the chance of playing against each other," said Cricket PNG GM, Greg Campbell. "The boys and the ladies will have Peter Anderson on hand so they will get to work closely with him over the next six months. We've got a lot of cricket coming up from January onwards so the boys will need to be very fit and also need to be at the top of their game over the next 12 months. They're well aware of it and I'm confident they do well on the Gold Coast,? said Campbell. "Thanks to Wayne Dorgan and his team at Pacific MMI, we now have the opportunity to give the Lewa's a chance to experience what the men have gone through over the past couple of years. I'm sure they'll do very well. I want to thank Brian Bell again for their sponsorship for this great programme. The standard the boys have been exposed too is doing wonders for the players individually and Cricket in PNG as a whole."

All fourteen players on Scholarship are as follows:

Assad Vala - Broad beach Robina
Jason Kila - Broad beach Robina
Chris Amini - Burleigh Heads
Sese Bau - Burleigh Heads
Norma Ovasuru - Gold Coast Dolphins
Kaia Arua - Gold Coast Dolphins
Pauke Siaka - Gold Coast Dolphins
Tanya Ruma - Gold Coast Dolphins
Toua Tom - Palm Beach Currumbin
Jack Vare - Palm Beach Currumbin
Tony Ura - Palm Beach Currumbin
Charles Amini - Runaway Bay
Norman Vanua - Runaway Bay
Lega Siaka - Runaway Bay