Women's Cricket team to compete in ICC T20 World Cup qualifiers

The Namibia Women's Cricket team will compete in the ICC Women's T20 World cup qualifiers from the 31st of August to the 7th of September in Scotland. They are replacing Zimbabwe, which has been suspended by the ICC. Both the Zimbabwean men and ladies teams who made it to the qualifiers have been suspended. The ladies will be replaced by runners up Namibia, while the men will be replaced by Nigeria. The Namibian ladies lost out an opportunity to compete in the world cup qualifiers in May, when they lost to Zimbabwe in the finals for the African qualifiers. Africa only had on spot for the upcoming competition in Scotland, a spot which Zimbabwe secured at the time. This however changed on Tuesday, following the official announcement by the ICC to suspend Zimbabwe from their competitions. Eight countries will compete in the ICC Women's T20 World cup qualifiers and Namibia will now rub shoulders with Ireland, Thailand and the Netherlands in group B, while group A will see the likes of Scotland , Bangladesh, USA and Papua New Guinea Team captain Yasmeen Khan said they are excited to team up against Ireland, who are among the favourites of the tournament. "This is a huge opportunity for women's cricket in Namibia, obviously it's not the best way to get into this tournament but we are taking it with both hands , so we want to make Africa proud not just Namibia but Africa as well" Khan said. Khan thanked all who have been supporting and believing in Women's Cricket. Team coach Leornad Nhamburo, who hails from Zimbabwe, says that when the team went to the qualifiers in May their main goal was to qualify, but unfortunately lost to Zimbabwe in the final. He believes now with this opportunity they have to make sure to play to the best of their abilities to qualify for the world cup although it's going to be another level of competition. "That stage is a different stage from the Africa qualifiers, cause now we have to play against the best from all the continents across the world so that stage is going to be a bit tougher" Nhamburo said. Nhamburo comes with a wealth of experience as he coached the Zimbabwean ladies team for the past nine years. He said the team needs game time, hence they will travel to Pretoria next week, to play a few warm up games against Provincial sides and to work out game awareness and combinations.

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