Cricket Namibia in partnership with Sanlam Namibia and Santam Insurance Namibia hosted the Newly inaugrirated Outjo cricket festival during the mid-term school break, the event that can be classified as one of the most successful events on the Outjo cricket calendar. Seeing more than 40 kids benefiting from the tournament from age group u11 to u15, boys and girls respectively.
The three-day (21-23 March 2018) tournament took place at the Outjo Sports Stadium, the tornament comprised of three teams namely Cheetahs, Lions and Tigers that were made up of mixed members of the different age groups and genders.
The main objective of this tournament was to give the players the opportunity to play well organized competitive cricket matches in a more professional and organized structure, while identifying young talents and further give more children the opportunity to play cricket.
Speaking at the sponsorship handover ceremony on the 21 March 2018, Mr Deon Van Zyl from Sanlam Namibia and Santam Insurance Namibia said it’s a great honour to be associated with organisations such as Cricket Namibia and considering the work it’s doing within the disadvantaged communities in the northern part of Namibia it’s a step in the right direction, Mr Deon Van Zyl was overwhelmed to see more girls playing cricket which is rare in Namibia, he went on to say the kids really love and are so passionate about the sport looking at their level of energy they showed during the entire festival, he further said the matches took the whole day but the kids had energy to play till the end of the matches which showed their determination, passion and detication to the sport.
The tournament was also graced by the presence of the Outjo Major Honourable Samuel Oe-Amseb who encouraged the players and motivated them by saying they should give their best and work hard in both education and sports and reframe from negative activities that will only destroy their futures, he further thanked Cricket Namibia for bringing the sport of cricket to Outjo and hoped to see the sport grow and expand to other towns in the region, the Major also thanked Sanlam Namibia and Santam Insurance Namibia for their sponsorships towards the tournament and hope to see them sponsor the sport in future again.
The tournament which was also attended by the National Head Coach Mr. Dee Thakur and National Player Tangeni Lungameni gave the opportunity to all players which participated in the tournament to receive technical and tactical advise from all aspects of the game. The national coach attended the tournament to identify all talented players from Outjo and also offered them great coaching from batting, bowling, wicket keeping and fielding, the national coach was extremely excited and overwhelmed to see that Outjo has a lot of talented players and the awareness for the sport of cricket within the kids.
The tournament which ended on the 23rd of March 2018, best performing players walked away with various performance certificates, Simon Ndeshihala was the batsman of the tournament having scored 63 Runs from 20 balls, Mathilde Kakolo Player of the tournament having scored 52 Runs in their final match against the Tigers, Sifula Haneb Captain of the having showed great leaderships skills and hard work, Elizabeth Ndume Wicketkeeper of the Tournament having displayed great keeping skills, Rodney Ubu-Khaeb Coach of the Tournament having by leading the Cheetahs to finals and won the finals, Tjiposa Kaupangurua Bowling of the tournament by obtaining over 6 wickets throughout the tournament, lastly Charles Hoadom Player of the tournament by showing great sportsmanship and talent in all aspects of the sport of cricket.
We would like to give our greatest appreciations and acknowledgments to the following companies for their continuous support and for being part of our cricket family and for their contributions towards the development of cricket in Outjo and Namibia at large.
- Sanlam Namibia and Santam Namibia
- Cricket Namibia
- Erongo Foods Products Pty Ltd
- OK Foods Outjo
- Hasai Investments CC
- Greendoor Investments 13TH cc
- Outjo Municipality