25 Aug 2022

Botswana national netball team, Dinaledi, has failed to qualify for the World Cup.

Dinaledi won two games out of four at the ongoing Africa Netball World Cup qualifiers in South Africa

Botswana was in Pool A with South Africa, Namibia, Tanzania and Zimbabwe.

Botswana lost the first two games: 37-60 against South Africa and  41-49 against Zimbabwe.

Dinaledi tasted the first victory against Namibia defeating them by a slight margin of 45-43 and consoled themselves with their last game against Tanzania which they won 54-45.

The results were not good enough for Dinaledi to proceed to the competition’s semi-finals.  

Despite failing to qualify for the World Cup, Dinaledi showed that they had improved their play compared to previous years, thanks to coach Jenny Van Dyk who instilled the spirit of competitiveness in the team.

In an interview, Van Dyk said the team played well in the first and second quarter of the encounter against South Africa, adding there was a lot of improvement compared to other years.

She said Botswana did what they needed to do in their game against Zimbabwe. He said the team needed to play more international games, adding that countries, which were doing well in the qualifiers had good preparations.

Botswana Netball Association (BONA) public relations officer, Mokeresete Mokeresete, concurred that despite not making it to the semifinals, Dinaledi played well.

“Compared to our last competitions, the team has displayed so much growth in terms of play.  The performance is way better than how we played in the 2018 World Cup Qualifiers, Singapore Nations Cup and 2021 Africa Championships in Namibia,” he said.

Mokeresete said engaging Van Dyk might be ‘what the doctor has prescribed’ for Dinaledi given that she had brought a lot of change in the style of play.“I wish she could have joined us earlier.

We could have done a lot better, given that she has only spent two months with the team, together with our local coaches, they made a lot of difference,” he said.

Mokeresete said if well prepared, Botswana could be a force to be reckoned with in future.

“Next year there is going to be Africa Cup and I believe that if we continue with good preparations, our play will be something to write home about,” he said.

He said moving forward, they would need to play more friendly games, adding this year they had not played any international games.

Meanwhile Mokeresete said their win against Tanzania meant they would be competing in the placement games to play for position five and six against Kenya which took position three in Pool B. ENDS