Cricket Namibia has announced a team that will represent the country when they host the ICC Africa Under 19 Cricket World Cup Qualifier from 29 August to 5 September in Windhoek.
Eight countries will participate in the tournament where the top two nations will qualify to play for the ICC Under 19 Cricket World Cup Qualifier in 2011.
Cricket Namibia Chief Executive Officer, Laurie Pieters, was very excited about the impact of hosting of the qualifiers would have on cricket development in the country.
“The tournament will have a huge impact on development cricket in Namibia. Other young players will watch the matches and it will encourage more youngsters to come and play cricket and we will have a bigger pool of cricket players in the country,” Pieters said.
Cricket Namibia announced a sixteen-man team that will represent the country at the qualifiers and it includes Wian van Vuuren and Gerhard Lotter who have previously represented the country at senior level.
“The Namibian team already started training for the tournament three weeks ago. They train four times a day and I am sure the team will be ready by the time we start the qualifiers,” Pieters added.
“We will go into the tournament optimistic and I know we will end in the top two and go to the next qualifiers,” he continued.
“We have a very good bowling attack, although there is some concern in the batting department, but the coaching staff are working on it.”
The team is being coached by senior national Johan Rudolph and managed by Norbert Manyande.
The countries that will be taking part in the qualifier are Uganda, Sierra Leone, Zambia, Kenya, Botswana, Tanzania and another country that still has to qualify from the Division 2 qualifiers. Namibia is seeded third behind Uganda and Kenya.
Two years ago Namibia finished third at the same tournament that was held in Kenya. They finished behind Sierra Leone and Uganda and missed out on playing in the World Cup Qualifiers.
The other players selected for the team are: Justin Board, Stephan Board, Luke Bolton, Kobus Brand, Christopher Coombe, Andre Engelbrecht, Gerhard Erasmus, Shalako Groenewald, Zhivago Groenewald, Pelham Myburgh, Colin Schoombee, Bredell Wessels and reserves Jasper Engelbrecht and Tangeni Lungameni.
Over 50 matches will be played during the qualifiers on a round robin basis and the matches will be hosted at United and Wanderers cricket fields.