Exciting future for women’s cricketers

DESPITE losing Saturday’s final against Kenya at the Kwibuka T20 Women’s cricket tournament in Kigali, Namibian women’s cricket has a great future.

SOURCE: https://www.namibian.com.na/102539/read/Exciting-future-for-womens-cricketers

This is the view of Francois van der Merwe, the coach of the Capricorn Eagles Namibian women’s team, after the team arrived back in Namibia on Sunday.

“In the first five matches we competed exceptionally well and the skill levels of the women were really good. Unfortunately on the day of the final, things didn’t happen for us and we came unstuck, but that’s what happens in T20 cricket and on the day we were just not good enough,” he said.

Namibia had swept all before them with some impressive victories during the group stages, when they also beat Kenya by 36 runs in their first encounter on 9 June. In the semifinals on Friday, Namibia thumped Nigeria by 91 runs, but their unbeaten run finally came to an end in the final on Saturday when they once again faced Kenya.

Namibia elected to bat after winning the toss, but for once their top order did not produce the goods.

Adri van der Merwe was run out for five, and when the tournament’s top run scorer Sune Wittmann was dismissed for seven, Namibia were struggling at 13 for two wickets.

Yasmeen Khan and Kayleen Green revived the innings with a 26-run partnership, but after Khan was dismissed for 11, Kenya spinner Sarah Wetoto struck to put Kenya firmly in charge.

She broke through Namibia’s middle order with regular wickets, as the next four wickets fell for only eight runs.

Kayleen Green with 15 runs and Sylvia Shihepo with 16 not out tried to stem the tide, but wickets continued to fall all around them as they crashed to 69 all out.

Wetoto was Kenya’s star bowler, winning the player of the match award with impressive figures of six wickets for only 16 runs off 3,5 overs.

In Kenya’s reply, Kayleen Green dismissed Veronica Abuga early on for a duck, and when Wilka Mwatile dismissed Queentor Abel for 10, Namibia had a glimmer of hope with the total on 22.

Margaret Ngoche, with 37 not out, and Sharon Juma with 16, however, put Kenya in charge, as they comfortably reached the winning target for the loss of three wickets with nine overs in hand.

‘Big learning curve’

Despite the defeat, Van der Merwe said the tournament was a great learning experience.

“The whole experience was a big learning curve and we haven’t played international cricket for the last 18 months, so to go back into a competitive tournament like this was really good and as a coach I’m really happy where we are with our skill levels. Unfortunately it’s just those big matches that we have to pull off when we get into the finals again,” he said.

“So overall I’m very satisfied, there are very good youngsters coming through the system as well and we just have to focus a bit more on our batting because we want to get that aspect of our game much stronger. But we’ve got a lot of good youngsters coming through, so the future is very bright for Namibian women’s cricket,” he added.

Namibia’s captain, Irene van Zyl said they had made a lot of progress.

“We’re pretty happy with our performance at the Kwibuka tournament. I felt we played good cricket overall and everyone made strides during this tournament. We were working on our processes, so it’s all a learning curve for everyone, and having a new coach, things don’t just happen overnight, so I’m pretty happy and content with what we achieved,” she said.

“Obviously on the last day things didn’t go our way, I think Kenya was just more focussed and clinical on the day, but we will not let that hold us back. We will come back stronger, we will go back to the drawing board and work on our processes again and take it from there,” she added.

Namibian players excelled in the individual statistics for the tournament, with Sune Wittmann emerging as the top batter, while Victoria Hamunyela was the second highest wicket taker.

Wittmann was the top run scorer with 167 runs at an average of 55,66 and a top score of 93 not out.

She was followed by Queentor Abel of Kenya with 165 runs, while Namibia’s Yasmeen Khan and Adri van der Merwe scored 126 and 125 runs respectively.

Wetoto was the top wicket taker with 17 wickets at an average of 4,82, while Namibia’s Victoria Hamunyela finished second with 15 wickets at an average of 4,53.

Hamunyela, who is still only 18 years old, made a great impact, taking a wicket with her very first ball, and is one of the exciting talents that emerged at the tournament.

Five Namibians also made the team of the tournament, namely Wittmann, Van der Merwe, Khan, Green and Hamunyela.

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