Boys Against Men - Argentina Under 19s Tour

Argentina's road to the Under 19 World Cup started and ended at the Americas Division 1 competition in Florida. But with an average age of 15 years and four months, our aim was to enjoy, learn, compete - and get back in one piece.

Tincho Perelta - getting his hair done

The team certainly enjoyed themselves. Debutants received initiation haircuts. These comprised the 'usual' Mohicans and skinheads. Sporting new hairstyles, the team may have been the smallest in the tournament but they were also the scariest looking.

Nacho Pizzo going for a grade one

The players also learned a lot. And on some pretty basic levels. For instance, when one bowler appealed to the umpire, one of the 14-year-olds screamed 'Sabadat' instead of the tried-and-tested 'Howzat',
such was his lack of cricketing knowledge.

Mohican - 13 year old Feli Nogues

Another player learned the fundamental difference between Astroturf and grass. After each ball the player in question would prod the surface with his bat. When quizzed on why he was doing this he replied that he had seen England's Jonathan Trott doing the same. It was explained to him that 'gardening' was not necessary when tending a surface that wasn't living.......

The team did compete. We beat the Bahamas and came close to doing the same against the Cayman Islands. However, against teams such as the USA, Canada and Bermuda, the gap was just too big.

Argentina take another wicket on their way
 to victory against the Bahamas

The games were played at three different venues, one of which was the USA National Cricket Stadium with a capacity of 12,000. It is an amazing experience to play in such a ground, but it becomes even bigger when players from Argentina have never as much seen a cricket ground before.

The 12,000 capacity national
 cricket stadium in Florida

And we did manage to get back in on piece. Just. The biggest scare came on the last day after a shopping trip to Saw Grass, the biggest shopping mall in the world.One player became detached from the main party and was finally found wandering around aimlessly just three hours before our plane left.

The most pleasing thing from a development point a view is that Lautaro Musiani and Agustin Husain, who played in the U19s team, have now been selected for the full national squad to compete in The ICC Americas T20 tournament later this year.