Binny
Former Indian allrounder Roger Binny, who is currently the Asian Cricket Council's cricket development officer and is here as one of the match referees of the under-15 Asia Cup believes that this tournament should help boost talent.

"Today's young cricketers play a lot of cricket and they mature into good players quickly. So there was an urgent necessity for an international tournament before the age of 17. From the coaches and the selectors point of view too, this age (around 15) is the right time to identify talent and start working on improving them," said Binny.

"It's easy to judge the strengths and weaknesses of boys, especially below the age of 17. Good performers in the under-15 tournament can be trained and their defects rectified so that they could perform much better in the under-17 and under-19 tournaments," added Binny, who had coached the India under-19 team to victory in the World Cup.

Appreciating the format of the tournament, Binny said, "This is the way it should be. None of the non-Test playing countries will have to play the Test playing countries in the earlier rounds. If countries like Kuwait had to play nations like India in the first round, it would have served no purpose.

"This format will give the non-Test playing countries an opportunity to play against teams of equal strength and gauge their standard before taking on the stronger Test playing countries."

Binny revealed that in India a lot of emphasis is being given to under-15 cricket these days. "They are played at a zonal level in India. Matches are played on a three-day format as we are very particular to see that at that level they do not play too much one-day cricket.

"Kids may get wrong ideas and then forget the need to stay at the wicket. However, for the under-19 level we hold one-day tournaments as we also compete in the under-19 World Cup," he said.

According to Binny, intense training is now being provided to junior cricketers in India. "Majority of the Indian players who will perform well in this tournament will be taken into the National Cricket Academy in Bangalore and given intense training."

Binny expressed satisfaction with the facilities at the Dubai Cricket Council ground. "It's a good atmosphere here and the wickets are excellent. We should see some enjoyable cricket in the days to come," he feels.