AfricaPress-Tanzania: TANZANIA will be among six countries to feature teams in the forthcoming ICC Mens’ T20 World Cup Sub Regional Africa B Qualifier to be held in South Africa in April this year.
According to International Cricket Council (ICC) media zone, there will be qualification series involving teams from different continents, among others, America and Europe. About 86 different teams will vie for the opportunity to fill the 16 World Cup spots in Australia.
The qualification series will be the pathway for the ICC Men’s T20 World Cup in Australia which is set to take place in October and November 2022. According to ICC, fourstep qualifying process will start in April this year with 11 regional qualification tournaments across five regions being rescheduled to 2021 after last year being heavily affected due to Covid-19 global pandemic.
However, this year’s qualification series are also subject to Covid-19 arrangements if required by the time the series will be held. Apart from Tanzania, the Sub Regional Africa B Qualifier will also feature Botswana, Cameroon, Mozambique, Sierra Leone and St Helena.
Other East African countries, Uganda and Kenya will also compete in the respective different qualification series with different opponents. Uganda will also travel to South Africa in April to compete against Ghana, Lesotho, Malawi, Rwanda, Seychelles and Swaziland while Kenya will have their qualification series in November in Nigeria.
Tanzania Cricket Association (TCA) information officer, Atif Salim said yesterday that the association has this weekend organized a special T20 tournament as part of preparations for the international assignments.
“ We expect to have T20 international assignments in few months to come in African region,”
“We therefore need to get prepared for the T20 series as we will face other countries when we resume our international cricket calendar of events that was last year heavily hit by Coronavirus global pandemic,” said Salim.
Kenyan experienced coach with a vast World Cup experience, Steve Tikolo will lead the local players to the qualification series as Tanzania will be making yet another attempt to qualify for the World Cup. At regional level there will be 67 Associate Members taking part.
Due to the depth of strength within Africa and Europe, both regions have sub regional qualifiers feeding into a final qualifier for the region.
Africa, Americas, EAP and Europe will have one top tier regional qualifier and Asia will have A and B to determine which teams will progress into the two eight-team global qualifiers.
