PIERRE de Bruyn of South Africa has been appointed as Cricket Namibia’s new national coach, replacing Dee Thakur who has been appointed as the new manager of development and age group coach.
According to a press release issued by Cricket Namibia (CN), De Bruyn was appointed after an exhaustive process.
“Following the promotion of the previous men’s national coach to the position of manager of development and age group coaching, as part of Cricket Namibia’s commitment to achieving qualification and keeping Namibia amongst the elite of world cricket, we embarked on the process of appointing a new coach in August 2018. Following an exhaustive process of advertising, shortlisting and interviewing Cricket Namibia are proud to announce the appointment of Pierre de Bruyn with effect from 1 January 2019,” it said.
“We were also proud to note the quality of the prospective candidates, many of whom had international coaching experience, and are confident that Pierre was not only the best candidate but also the best fit for our present and future ambitions,” it added.
De Bruyn played provincial cricket in South Africa for the Titans and the Dolphins and represented South Africa in the Hong Kong Sixes before moving into various coaching roles.
As the Leicestershire county head coach, he had significant success with Leicestershire with white-ball cricket. He is also an accomplished presenter and is currently an international commentator and broadcaster.
De Bruyn said he was looking forward to the challenge.
”I am very excited to take on the role as head coach for a national team with such rich history and tradition. It is a country that has the potential to compete with the top Associate teams in the world and I am confident that we can align our vision and goals to reach success,” he said.
“As a former Leicestershire county head coach, I have learnt a lot and I am looking to implement good and clear strategies within the Cricket Namibia pipeline. It is important for me that every young player in Namibia should dream of playing for their country,” he added.
“We have a very important phase coming up from January to April next year, where we will play in the qualifiers to stay in Division 2 and there is hard work lying ahead to prepare as a squad for the tournament,” he said.
With the finalisation of the ICC men’s competitions last month, cricket in Namibia is on the threshold of an exciting and challenging new era. In the future, international 50-over matches will be structured into three leagues as pathways to the 2023 World Cup.
The 12 test nations plus the Netherlands will compete in the CWC Super League while the next ranked associate countries will compete in the seven-team team CWC League 2, below which will be the CWC Challenge League.
Namibia have already won the hosting rights from the ICC for the final qualification tournament for the CWC League 2 from 18 to 28 April, 2019. The teams competing in the tournament will be Namibia, Canada, Hong Kong, PNG, Oman and the USA of whom the top four will go through to join Scotland, Nepal and the UAE in CWC League 2.
Namibia, therefore, has the prospect of competing with the top associates in world cricket over a two-year period with matches played home and away at some top class venues in the cricketing world.
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