New Zealand's preparations for next year's Youth World Cup to be staged in New Zealand are already underway.

With only four of last year's under-19 team which beat South Africa in a Test and One-Day International series still eligible for selection a new side has to be prepared. Those surviving players are Jesse Ryder, Ross Taylor, Rob Nicol and Iain Robertson. Nicol is this year's New Zealand Young Player to Lord's.

Forty players have been targeted as potential representatives and the job of assessing them will begin soon.

Regional high performance camps were held in the major associations in May with New Zealand Cricket's director of player development Ashley Ross and the director of coaching development, John Howell taking sessions. National age-group selector Bruce Morrison joined the Wellington session.

A process of short-listing candidates for the side is underway and those players will take part in a High Performance programme at the Cricket Academy at Lincoln from August 20-24 with a follow-up to be held in November.

In November, selectors will attend the major association trials and also the Under-19 pre-tournament local derby games.

The national tournament will be played from December 27-January 4. The local derby games will be three-day contests while the tournament will be a limited overs affair.

A tournament team and the New Zealand Under-19 teams will be named at the end of the tournament.

Those selected for the side will go into a pre-World Cup camp to get some special practice in for the one-day cricket that will make up the tournament.

Practice games have been organised against England on January 16 and Pakistan the following day.

New Zealand's first game in the tournament will be played on January 19.

A third ground is being prepared at Lincoln University to cater for the increased usage of the ground this summer. Three major games in the World Cup will be played on the Bert Sutcliffe Oval.

It is also hoped that an outdoor practice facility will be developed at the Academy with 10 grass pitches and two all-weather tracks.

The Academy director, Dayle Hadlee said the completion of the practice facilities would make the Academy complex a world-class sports facility.

That impression had been backed recently by former Australian cricketer Shaun Graf who travelled the world studying sports complexes, including Ajax of Amsterdam and Manchester United and other cricket facilities, as the basis of a Melbourne development.

Graf, who had started his tour at Lincoln, told Hadlee after his tour that the completion of the practice facilities would give New Zealand a facility to rank anywhere in the world.

© 2001 CricInfo Ltd