Junior cricketers to face with Botswana in Cricket friendship cup

Botswana’s U19 national side will face Namibia’s high performance squad at the Momentum Friendship Cup slated for 11 July to 15 in Windhoek.
Cricket Namibia announced this earlier this week and said Namibia was supposed to face Zimbabwe and Western Province, but the two sides pulled out due to various reasons.
The five scheduled matches are preparation for Botswana for their upcoming U19 World Cup qualifying campaign, while the Namibian selectors will have a closer look at the potential players that will represent the country at the global U19 show piece in 2018 following Namibia’s automatic qualification, at the last World Cup at the beginning of the year, where they picked up 7th position.
The tourney will start off with two 50 over matches on the first two days, followed by two 20 over games on 13 July. Two more 50 overs will round of the event which is playing played across five different venues.
Coach, Rangarirai Manyande has selected a 24 player strong squad. Each individual will get his chance to impress Manyande and his colleagues and book themselves a place in the final squad that will participate in New Zealand.
Meanwhile, Vido Tjozongoro, Head of Marketing of the MMI brand said he is very happy with the grassroots programme that Cricket Namibia are currently running through FNB, and is excited to see the results of this program reaping it’s benefits within the next few years.
FNB and Momentum both have a major role to play within the development of Cricket in Namibia, with FNB being the main sponsor of Grass Roots Cricket, through which the KW ATA players then filter into the Momentum Cricket, where they are then ready to take on the best in Namibia.
The programme was designed to also include government schools in Namibia to make sure that learners from previously disadvantage communities also benefit from this developmental program. Some of the schools benefiting from the program are Peoples Primary school in Katutura, Moses Van Der Byl, AI Steenkamp, Elim and Gammams Primary Schools.
“In the Erongo Region, Cricket Namibia has included Tutaleni Primary School, Naraville, Kuisebmund Primary School, while Oshakati Primary School, Oshikuku Elim and Rundu Nkurenkuru Primary School are also beneficiaries of the programme and we believe that involving more schools in Namibia will help us to identifying and developing this young talent at an early stage in preparing them to compete at National level once ready,” Tjozongoro continued.
Players such as Ben Shikongo and Mauritius Ngupita are evidence of the success of the KW ATA programme, as they went through the structures of KWATA, and then Momentum, and have now been selected to represent the Namibia High Performance Squad against Botswana.