All the visiting players of the under-19 World Cup teams has been asked to surrender their passport to New Zealand Cricket.

This step has been taken in an effort to prevent players from going 'missing'.

After some players went 'missing' during the World Cup qualifier in Toronto last year, an apprehensive New Zealand Immigration asked all the visiting teams to surrender their passports to prevent a recurrence of the event.

An ICC spokesperson said all the teams were informed about it before their departure for New Zealand, where the tournament starts on Friday, and none had any problem with it.

"They asked NZC to retain passports of players from certain countries, whom they considered to be a high-risk of overstaying," the spokesperson told a cricket website.

"We did not feel it was fair to single out a small number of teams so NZC is holding the passports of all the teams," he added.

Last year, seven Uganda players did not return home, along with five cricketers and a coach of Afghanistan, who are reportedly seeking asylum in Canada.

"Naturally, this has had a knock-on effect for the tournament proper in New Zealand with understandable concerns being raised by the immigration authorities that there may be a repeat occurrence," the spokesperson said.

"All the teams understand the need to do this and it is being done in the best interests of the event and the game of cricket," he said.

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