Namibian women in buoyant mood
Namibia’s women’s cricket team is hard at work and hoping to pull off an upset by winning the Africa qualifier for the 2018 T20 Women’s World Cup which Namibia will host from 8 to 16 September.
Namibia is one of five African nations that will battle it out to win the tournament and keep their goal on track to qualify for the 2018 T20 World Cup.
The African winners will join winners from other regions such as Europe, East Asia Pacific and the Americas to go through to the final qualifying tournament for the World Cup, and Namibia’s coach Christopher Coombe said they are very positive about their chances.
“We have what it takes to win the tournament and obviously I’m aiming for that. I think if the girls play as hard as they have trained the past two months, we can definitely win the tournament and our home ground advantage will help a lot,” he said.
Earlier this year Namibia played some friendly matches in South Africa and performed well against strong teams which included several Proteas players.
They lost to Gauteng A, but beat Gauteng B, while they also drew 2-2 against Northerns Titans.
The Namibian team has been training five days a week for the past two months and also held a training and team building camp at the coast at the end of July. After the training camp the final squad of 14 players and four non-travelling reserves was selected and according to Coombe it’s a well balanced side.
“It’s a nicely balanced team - we have a few seniors from previous tournaments, but most of our players are still u19 and we even have players as young as 16 because we are also planning ahead.”
The team is captained by the experienced Petro Enright who is an opening batsman and bowler, while Irene van Zyl - a fast bowler and middle order batsman, is the vice captain.
Other seniors in the team include opening batsman Anri van Schoor and all rounder Didi Foerster, who has also represented Namibia in inline hockey and canoe polo.
The youngsters include the Khan twins Yasmeen and Reehana; Adri van der Merwe, Hannelise de Klerk, Kayleen Green, Constantia Kauripeke, and the 16-year-old Danelle Dreyer from Stampriet.
The team is being coached by Coombe and his assistants Pieter Groenewald and Tuqeer Raza, while they also have regular sessions with Cricket Namibia’s strength and conditioning coach Clint Henry.
“The girls are excited and they are a lot more positive about the tournament - they are much better now than before and know what their roles are,” Coombe said.
“I can see a big improvement. The bowling is much faster and the fielding and movement in the field is much better. We are aiming to be the best fielding side at the tournament, because I believe that catches will win matches,” he added.
On recent performances though, Zimbabwe should start as the firm favourites since they have won the African Championships five times in recent years.
With this in mind, the Namibian team will undertake a tour of Zimbabwe next week to play five T20 matches and Coombe believes the experience will be vital.
“Zimbabwe are one of the favourites for the tournament, so it will provide good preparation and give us an opportunity to analyse their game.”
The CEO of Cricket Namibia, Dr Donovan Zealand said that in line with the ICC’s commitment to grow women’s cricket around the world, they had pledged their commitment to develop women’s cricket at all levels in Namibia.
“Various initiatives have been implemented through our regional development programmes to grow the game from grassroots level up. Various clubs are doing their best to ensure the development of women’s cricket by creating opportunities and putting projects in place to dispel the notion that cricket is solely a male sport. In this regard women are currently participating in Cricket Namibia leagues, ranging from T20 to 50 over competitions,” he said.
“Whilst the number of girls playing softball cricket is very high, our conversion rates into hardball cricket remains low, mainly due to a lack of resources and adequate facilities. Through its development initiatives Cricket Namibia hopes to increase the number of girls considerably during the next few years, as well as to change the perception that cricket is a male sport,” he added.
“It is indeed a great honour and privilege for Cricket Namibia to host the Africa T20 Qualifiers in Namibia during September 2017 and Cricket Namibia hopes that this tournament will be a catalyst to attract more women and girls to the game,” Dr Zealand concluded.
The Namibian squad is as follows
Petro Enright, Irene van Zyl, Anneri van Schoor, Arrasta Diergaardt, Didi Foerster, Sune Wittmann, Hannelise de Klerk, Yasmeen Khan, Reehana Khan, Kayleen Green, Sylvia Shihepo, Daniel Dreyer, Constantia Kauripeke and Adri van der Merwe.