Canada's preparations for the WCQ will be having something of a Sri Lankan flavour to them.

Eight players, expected to form the core of Canada's 15 man squad for the World Cup Qualifier in South Africa will be travelling to Colombo to receive specialist coaching. The players selected for the visit will be Qaiser Ali, Umar Bhatti, Rizwan Cheema, Harvir Baidwan, Khurram Chohan, Sandeep Jyoti, Eion Katchay and Henry Osinde.

The players will then join the remaining seven members of the squad in Zimbabwe for a four match ODI series before they head to South Africa for the big event itself.

The connection with Sri Lanka doesn't end there. Head coach Pubudu Dassanayake played Tests and ODIs for Sri Lanka in the mid 1990s, before emigrating to Canada, for whom he played in 2005 and 2006. He has secured the services of Marvan Atapattu, who played 90 Tests and 268 ODIs for Sri Lanka, as batting coach for the WCQ and its build up.

Cricket Canada recently named their provisional 30 man squad for the WCQ. The squad, much improved from the Americas Championship squad contains Qaiser Ali, Ashish Bagai, Harvir Singh Baidwan, Geoffrey Barnett, Trevin Bastiampillai, Rustam Bhatti, Umar Bhatti, Ian Billcliff, Abdul Jabbar Chaudrey, Rizwan Cheema, Khurram Chohan, Ramesh David, John Davison, Sunil Dhaniram, Abdus Sami Faridi, Anuraj Gupta, Mohammad Iqbal, Karun Jethi, Sandeep Jyoti, Aravind Kandappah, Eion Katchay, Ashif Mulla, Henry Osinde, Balaji Rao, Abdool Samad, Baber Sandhu, Jason Sandher, Steven Welsh, Saad Bin Zafar and Zubin Surkari.

Fifteen players will be selected for the Zimbabwean tour and the World Cup Qualifier.