NAMIBIA’s limited-overs matches against Ireland will go ahead as planned on July 4 and 5 while their four-day Intercontinental Cup match will be played at a later date still to be determined.
This emerged after discussions between the two countries’ cricket associations yesterday.The International Cricket Council yesterday issued a statement saying that it had given ‘two participating home boards the opportunity to propose an amicable agreement as to how best to deal with the I Cup fixture and any other relevant matters’.Cricket Namibia president Francois Erasmus, who is attending the annual conference of the ICC in Hong Kong, discussed the matter with Cricket Ireland officials and they reached a solution.According to Cricket Namibia’s representative of players’ affairs, Kallie Engelbrecht, they agreed that the limited-overs matches would go ahead as planned on July 4 and 5, while another solution would be found for the four-day Intercontinental Cup match.’Francois Erasmus sorted out the problem. He told me that Namibia would fly out for the limited-overs matches, while the four-day match would be played at a later date, but I don’t have the details now.’Half of the players are still waiting for their visas from Pretoria. As soon as they arrive we will fly out to Ireland, so it could be Tuesday evening or Wednesday evening,’ he added.According to Engelbrecht the delay was very unfortunate after it later emerged that Namibia did not even need visas to enter Northern Ireland.’I received an email from Cricket Ireland earlier today where they confirmed that Namibians who enter the UK for less than six months to participate in a particular sporting event do not need visas. This is very unfortunate and it would have been good if we had been informed about this from the beginning,’ he said.Engelbrecht said that they had applied for visas for the Namibian players through a UK visa organisation in Windhoek. The applications had to be sent to the British embassy in Pretoria, South Africa.The first batch was sent on June 15 and arrived back on June 22, but the second batch, which was sent on June 16, had still not arrived.The ICC had originally proposed that Namibia travel to Ireland to play its two scheduled 50-overs matches on July 4 and 5, and that their Intercontinental Cup match be rescheduled to a later date.However, when this will take place, and who will pay for the trip, still had to be clarified. – namibiasport.com.na
