Former skipper Waruna Perera has set his sights on making the UAE senior team having been overlooked in the Under-19 squad for next month’s 2018 World Cup qualifiers due to age restrictions.
The batsman was one of eight players to have been ineligible for the 50-over tournament in Malaysia after the International Cricket Council (ICC), ruled only players born after September 1, 1998 can be named in the final 16-man squad.
Having turned 19 on June 6, Perera’s U-19 international career is now over and while he enjoyed every minute of donning the national jersey in his four years, he is determined to step up his game and break into the seniors set-up within the next two years.
“I’m not disappointed because one day my UAE Under-19 career was always going to come to an end,” said Perera, who led the team in last year’s Asian Cricket Council’s (ACC) Premier League tournament in Malaysia.
“Playing for four years for the UAE has been great. It made me a different player and I started looking at the sport in a different way. “It’s been a wonderful experience and I can’t ask for anything better than that.”
A member of the UAE World Cup squad in 2014, the Desert Cubs player has been a familiar name in the set-up. Unlike many of his team-mates who have gone abroad to study, he plans to stay in the UAE and continue his international career.
“For sure, I’ll be staying in the UAE and have no plans of leaving. I’ll be studying here and I really want to make the senior team,” he said. “I’m willing to work hard and if I do make it to do the senior team, it will be a really special moment. But I just want to improve my fitness and stay injury free.”
