Cricket team to face Hong Kong

Namibia’s national cricket team will take a crack at Hong Kong in the first round of the  Intercontinental Cup and World Cricket League (WCL) Championships respectively.
Namibia will commence its Intercontinental Cup campaign on Sunday 10 May, with a four-day match against their Asian counterparts, at the Wanderers Sports Club fields in Windhoek.

The Intercontinental Cup is the International Cricket Council’s (ICC) four-day, first-class competition for the leading Associate and Affiliate Members (AMs). The event was first played in 2004, however, it now takes on much greater significance with the 2017 winner challenging the 10th-ranked Full Member for the opportunity to play Test cricket. Besides Hong Kong, Namibia will compete against Ireland, Afghanistan, Papua New Guinea, Scotland, the United Arab Emirates (UAE) and the Netherlands over the two-year span in search of promotion. On 15 May, the Namibian One Day International (ODI) team will take on Hong Kong in their first ICC World Cricket League Championships match. The team qualified by virtue of being placed 2nd in the 2015 ICC World Cricket League Division Two on home soil at the beginning of the year.
Ireland and Afghanistan will not compete in the tournament as both of them have been made eligible to qualify for the 2019 World Cup directly via rankings. Instead, Kenya and Nepal have been included in the tournament. The WCL Championship is the ICC’s premier 50-over competition for the leading Associate Members. The top countries at the end of 2017 will earn direct passage into the ICC Cricket World Cup Qualifiers 2018, while the winner will also have the opportunity to challenge for a place on the ICC’s ODI Rankings from 2018 onwards.