Africa-Press – Lesotho. THE Lesotho Cricket Association (LCA) yesterday presented two national teams that will represent Lesotho next week at tournaments in Botswana and South Africa. The two sides are the national women’s cricket team and the men’s Under-19 squad.
The Under-19 team will jet off to the North West in South Africa to participate in the International Cricket Council (ICC) Division 2 qualifiers where contestants have a chance to book a place at next year’s Under-19 Cricket World Cup to be held in South Africa.
The teams were presented by LCA president Sebajoa Sebajoa. “I would like to present to you the teams that will represent the country in two places being Botswana and South Africa,” he said.
“The women’s cricket national team, under the leadership of the vice president of Lesotho Cricket Association ‘Makhahlo Mohale and coach Atanase Mohapi .
This team, will leave the country on Sunday to Gaborone, Botswana. “We are going to play in a tournament called the Botswana Cricket Association Invitational.
When this tournament started in 2016, it was called the Botswana Cricket Association 8 Nations Ladies Tournament, but it changed as time went by,” he added.
The countries that will be participating this year are the hosts Botswana, Lesotho, Malawi, Mozambique and Sierra Leone. The tournament’s opening match will see Lesotho face-off against Botswana.
When it was first introduced the tournament was used by Botswana cricket to prepare their teams for international tournaments but it is now recognised by the ICC.
The ICC has introduced new rules for national teams stipulating each side should play at least five international games per year and Sebajoa said the Botswana Invitational is important to the LCA in terms of ranking and assessing the women’s team going forward.
“It is going to help us a lot because that is where we will weigh ourselves to see where we lost or won the game,” Sebajoa said.
“There will be rankings (points available) in this tournament so that the ICC can see who is number one in Africa and so forth and even so that we get subvention from the ICC through our ranking. If our rankings are good we will get a good subvention to help us improve our cricket programmes in the country.
“We have done our part from June when we selected the team, today we are presenting them and we thank (the Lesotho Sport and Recreation Commission) because they have been here with us throughout,” he said. In their championship the Under-19 men’s team is in Group B alongside Mozambique, Ghana, Gambia and Nigeria.
