In facing a host of outfits including Sri Lanka A, the 14-strong Cricket Tasmania development team often had to combat more experienced opposition as well as unfamiliar conditions over the course of a two-week tour.

Cricket Tasmania Northern high performance coach Clinton Reid said the tour had undoubtedly achieved its goal of challenging players with difficult conditions. 

“We basically played against Sri Lanka A for the first half of the trip which was a bit of a shock when we got there, but one of the main aims of the tour is to stretch the players and challenge them a lot and we achieved that,” Reid said.

“Sri Lanka A were trialling players against our team and our boys in readiness for the upcoming Test series against India and we found the boys adapted really well, it was just hard to execute at times due to the absolute quality of the opposition.

“The weather was extremely hot because we left our winter and we got over there and it was 90 per cent humidity.”

The under-19 side featured six Northern-based players - James Curran, Ollie Wood, Jake Williams, Jack McCulloch, Jarrod Freeman and Dominic Rawlings - while former Mowbray cricketer Fletcher Seymour also lined up.

“Jarrod found it quite difficult in the first half of the trip but bounced back in the second half of the trip and really performed well which was really pleasing for him.

“Ollie Wood and Dom Rawlings found going tough, like all of our players did at times, but on reflection and talking to them they’ve learned a lot from the trip and they’ve got a big focus moving forward in what they want to improve in their game.

“One of the pleasing parts of the trip was young James Curran who was one of the youngest players we took, he’s only 16 and he bowled to first class cricketers and handled himself really well which is excellent for James and he really should take some confidence out of the two weeks.” 

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The team was led by Cricket Tasmania contracted players Cameron Boyce and Beau Webster, who starred by scoring a double century in the second week.

“They provided much-needed experience.

“Beau had a fantastic two weeks so it was great to watch him go about his batting in preparation and on game day and lot of young batters learned a lot from him, as did I as coach.

“Cameron has experienced those conditions a fair bit in the past and his knowledge was excellent for the bowlers.”