Women’s cricket team to participate in first major tourney in since 2019 – Squad to take part in Kwibuka Tournament
The women’s cricket team will take part in the upcoming five-day-long Kwibuka Tournament from 6 to 10 June in Kigali Rwanda, Cricket Namibia (CN) announced this week.
The national will compete among four other African cricket nations, the cricket body said.
According to CN, Kwibuka Tournament is a buildup and preparation for the ICC Women’s T20 World Cup Africa Qualifiers, and Namibia will compete at the Gahanga stadium against Rwanda (host), Uganda, Botswana, Namibia, and Nigeria.
“Countries competing in the Kwibuka tournament will be among 10 countries set to play in the African qualifiers later this year in Botswana,” she added.
CN CEO, Johan Muller said he is happy that the women can start playing International cricket too, considering their last major tournament was in Scotland in 2019.
“We are glad that we can now have an international competition for our ladies. Our players and coach have worked hard for the last 10 months to improve the level and skills of our players,” he added.
Muller said the women’s team is currently ranked 23rd in the world and one of their goals during this upcoming tournament is to move up on the rankings.
Meanwhile, the women’s national coach Francois van der Merwe said they just want to go play an entertaining brand of cricket and execute all the hard work from the practice sessions and put into action at the Kwibuka Tournament.
Van der Merwe commended the team for a drastic improvement of the squad over the past eight months, and that the ultimate 24 players have been playing regular inter-squad games.
