DILLON Heyliger is the lone Guyanese-born player named in Canada’s 14-man squad set to depart the North American country today to participate in the ICC 2022 Men’s T20 World Cup Americas Qualifier, to be staged in Antigua from November 7 to 15.

The tall right-arm fast bowler, who hails from Essequibo and represented Guyana at the youth level, enjoyed a particular fine year in 2019, emerging as the top wicket-taker at the ICC Americas T20 final, played in Bermuda.

Heyliger finished the tournament with 11 wickets, including capturing four for 18 versus Bermuda, a feat for which he was richly rewarded, emerging as the best bowler as Canada played unbeaten.

The tournament, which was held to determine the two Americas qualifiers, saw Canada and Bermuda secure the top two places.

The 32-year-old Heyliger, who represented Montreal Tigers in the second edition of the Global T20 Canada in 2019, also had the unique feat of grabbing a hat-trick against Edmonton Royals, ending with the remarkable figures of 4-1-13-3 and also had the satisfaction of hitting the winning runs for his team.

The Canadian squad includes exciting all-rounder Rayyan Pathan who recently participated as an overseas player in Nepal’s T20 Everest Premier League. Pathan also recorded a highest score of 46 and captured eight wickets with his medium-pace bowling during the St Kitts hosted 2019 Cricket West Indies (CWI) Colonial Medical Life Super50 Tournament.

The T20 World Cup Americas Qualifier, which will be played in a round-robin format, will see the tournament’s top two teams progress into the two eight-team global qualifiers for the 2022 ICC Men’s T20 World Cup to be played in Australia next November.

Argentina, Bahamas, Belize, Bermuda, Cayman Islands, Panama and the USA will be the other seven teams participating in the seven-day tournament,

Canada 14-member squad: Navneet Dhaliwal (captain), Dillon Heyliger, Jatinderpal Matharu, Shreyas Movva, Salman Nazar, Rayyankhan Pathan, Cecil Pervez, Junaid Siddiqui, Kaleem Sana, Ravinderpal Singh, Hamza Tariq, Harsh Thaker, Saad Zafar and Aaditya Varadharajan.

The squad will be accompanied by six officials: Carlos Ragoonath – manager, Amarinder Bhinder – coach, two assistant coaches Khuram Chohan and Daulat Khan, Ankur Sharma – physiotherapist and Dinesh Mahabir – analyst. (Frederick Halley)