17 Jan 2022

Senior softball men’s team is preparing for continental qualifier for the World Baseball Softball Confederation (WBSC) world cup slated for South Africa from February 11 to 13.

The team’s assistant coach, Basiami Molatlhiwa, said preparations were tough given that players spent almost a year of non-activity due to  the COVID-19 pandemic.

Molatlhiwa said they started their selection camp early December.

“We are now hopeful, compared to when we started.  The pitching department was very bad, but where we are today, I would say there is a lot of hope,” he said.

The assistant coach said they would be having another camp from January 28 to February 7 to fine tune the team.

Molatlhiwa said Africa was reserved one slot at the world cup compared to previous years when they were given two slots.

He pointed out that this time around, African countries had shown interest in qualifying for the world showpiece.

“We were informed that around seven countries have shown interest in the Africa qualifiers.There is Egypt, Uganda, Kenya, Lesotho, South Africa, Zambia and Botswana,” he said.

Furthermore, Molatlhiwa said the qualifiers were going to be tough, especially that only one slot had been reserved for Africa.

He noted that COVID-19 had affected them, but the technical team was trying to do its best with the pool of players they had.

“There are quite new faces in our team, because others have reached their retirement age,” he said,

Meanwhile, according to the WBSC website, Africa is reserved one slot, Asia, Europe, Oceania have two while America has four slots and there is one wild card. ENDS