The Namibia Capricorn Eagles received a rousing farewell yesterday before their departure to India, ahead of the ICC Women’s T20 World Cup Global Qualifier which starts in Nepal on 18 January.
The Eagles will play four warm-up matches against Indian state side Assam, before heading to Nepal, where they will play two warm-up matches against Thailand and the Netherlands, before the World Cup Qualifier gets underway.
Namibia, which is ranked 18th in the world, will compete in Group A along with Ireland (ninth), Bangladesh (10th), Papua New Guinea (13th) and the United States (25th), while Group B will consist of Scotland (11), Thailand (12), The Netherlands (14), Zimbabwe (15) and Nepal (21).
The top three teams in each group will qualify for the Super Six stage, where the top four teams will qualify for the 2026 T20 World Cup in England in June.
The CEO of Cricket Namibia Johan Muller called on the team to embrace the opportunity.
“My message today is a message of privilege, and it’s something that we underestimate. How privileged are we that we’re sitting in a world-class stadium that will soon be hosting the T20 u19 Men’s World Cup, while at the same time, our men’s team is preparing in Cape Town for the Men’s T20 World Cup in February in India,” he said.
“Furthermore, we have a full year of 20 international tournaments coming up – where have you ever seen a sporting code in Namibia being able to participate in 20 international tournaments? So it’s just a message of appreciating where we were, where we are now, and looking to the future, where we want to go to. And if we think that this is where we’re going to stop, then we’ve got the wrong mindset. If we continuously look at the growth that we had and pursue that same growth for the future, then we’ve got the right mindset,” he added.
Valuable lessons learned
In November last year Namibia competed in the Emerging Nations Trophy in Thailand where the came seventh out of eight nations and Muller said that experience will come to good stead.
“The Emerging Nations Trophy was your first experience of really high-level cricket and it was a very tough tournament. I think you learned some extremely valuable lessons and I hope that prepared you mentally for this tournament, which will have even more high-profile teams as well as some full member Test nations.
“I know that the quality that we’ve got in this group hasn’t shone brightly like it can for the rest of the world. There’s so much more potential in you that you didn’t show at the Emerging Nations Trophy, while you suffered a couple of close losses that could easily have gone the other way around, and we believe that you will turn that around in this tournament.
Muller called on the players to believe in themselves, saying that world cup qualification was within their grasp.
“Let me just highlight the fact that with two wins and one narrow defeat you will qualify for the world cup in England in June, that is the reality, and I hope that you see it that way. Regardless of who you are playing, it is literally two wins and a narrow defeat and you are in the World Cup. I hope that inspires you in every match that you play to give that 10% more to make that breakthrough, and I also hope you trust and believe in yourself,” he added.
Head coach Francois van der Merwe said they are well prepared.
“We had really good preparations in Thailand at the Emerging Nations tournament, it was a really tough tournament against highly ranked teams so we got a lot of data from that in really tough conditions as well. As our CEO said, it’s a privilege to go and play in these types of tournaments, but we feel that we are really well prepared,” he said.
“There will always be tough opposition, thats what you will get at this level but if you want to go to the world cup you will have to play against stronger opposition. In our pool we will play against Ireland and Bangladesh who are both test playing nations that are ranked in the top ten in the world, so we will have to come up with really good strategic plans and then on the day anything can happen in T20 cricket,” he added.
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