09 Nov 2022

The senior men’s cricket national team will on Tuesday travel to the Rwandan capital Kigali for the International Cricket Council (ICC) Men’s T20 cricket world cup Africa ‘A’ qualifier.

The team departs for Kigali after intensive preparations regionally and will be in camp until November 17 when the closely contested qualifiers kick start.

The tournament is an eight-team event from the two groups of the African continent’s T20 format.

From the 16 teams of the sub-regional qualifiers, only four teams will make the grade to the Africa Qualifiers, where Uganda and Namibia are already placed.

Qualifier A comprises the hosts Rwanda, Botswana, Kenya Malawi, St Helena, Seychelles, Lesotho and Mali while group B is made up of Tanzania, Nigeria, Ghana, Sierra Leone, Mozambique, Cameroon, eSwatini and the Gambia.

Rwanda Cricket Association (RCA) has been given the hosting rights for the sub-regional qualification tournament for the Africa region, 2024 ICC Men’s T20 world cup.

The association had previously hosted the Africa sub-regional qualifiers and Africa finals for the 2022 T20 world cup, which was played in September last year.

Botswana team is travelling to Kigali after an intensive training camp against the Zimbabwean Tuskers cricket team, where they played one 50 Over game and five T20 games losing the opening 50 Over encounter while winning the T20 series 4-1.

In an effort to brush the team further, Botswana Cricket Association roped in the expertise of one of the sport’s finest batters Daryll Cullinan.

Cullinan is a former South Africa first class cricketer who played Test cricket and One Day Internationals (ODIs) for South Africa as a specialist batsman. 

He is regarded as the most talented batsman of his generation.

In an interview, BCA vice chairperson Sumod Damodar said they were privileged to engage Cullinan in their preparations ahead of the sub-regional tournament.

He said in his two days in Botswana, Cullinan engaged players in a team talk session, watched them play a few games and was generally impressed with the performance.

Damodar said the Botswana team was proactive in their game plan and that was one recipe for becoming the best team continentally.

Damodar said Cullinan’s engagement with the national team players would hopefully pay off when they take to the field for their assignment.

Botswana will open their account with a tricky encounter against Rwanda on the 17^th, then in the afternoon of the same day face Seychelles. 

On the 18^th they will play Lesotho, then face Malawi on the 20^th and Mali two days later. 

The team will draw the curtain against Kenya on the 24^th. Ends