And while the students placed second with pasta, another outbound team will try to excel with wickets.
The Belize National Cricket Team left today for the ICC AMÉRICAS Men T20 World Cup sub regional qualifiers to be held in Buenos Aires, Argentina from December 6 to 16.
We met the squad at the airport and they had high hopes:
Dr. Roy Young, President, Belize Cricket Association
"But we are fortunate to be one of the nine countries participating in this tournament. And this tournament is leading to the T20 World Cup in 2026 in India and Sri Lanka. And so this is the first step for the Americas."
"From this list of nine countries, 3 will emerge as the leaders. And those three countries will participate against Canada in 2025. And from that tournament of four teams, one will go on to the World Cup, to the big dance."
"So we are hoping that Belize will be a part of that. However, if we advance beyond this tournament, this first phase, we would have made history because Belize has participated at this level, but not have advanced."
"As you know that with all sport, your performance is dependent on your preparation. Unfortunately for us, we weren't able to get the best preparation because of rain conditions. So we were not able to go in a cricket field to prepare ourselves."
"So we did a lot of our preparations in the gym at SJC. And so, but despite that, we know that our guys are very talented. And so we are hoping that our talent will drive us to the next level."
Jermaine Pook, Captain, Belize National Cricket Team
"Our team consists of 15 members. We're all talented players from the Belize River Valley area. We're heading out with that mindset to compete and win, and that high spirit to represent our country to the fullest and to be one of those three countries that will be advancing to the American regional finals."
"We've been preparing, we have much talent, and we're going out with that mindset to compete. Most of these teams we have beaten before in the past, and we're ready."
Maurice Castillo, Vice President, Belize National Cricket Team
"We just have to go and play hard, like a team we're prepared with my guys already. So I should think we should bring back the win for Belize."
Reporter
"Cricket is a limited sport that most people know in Belize. So why would you tell people to play?"
Maurice Castillo, Vice President, Belize National Cricket Team
"Well, its a mental game. If you are short of patient, it will not work for you. But if you jabe patience and and time and cooperate with people. just try it and it will work."
Belize is among a total of nine teams including Argentina, Bahamas, Bermuda, Brazil, Cayman and Mexico.
