Namibia to kick-start Cricket Africa Cup
Namibia will host South Africa and Zimbabwe in a T20 Trinations series in August, which will be the forerunner to a revamped Africa Cup. Cricket Namibia chief executive Johan Muller yesterday confirmed the news, saying the idea originated at last year’s historic T20 match between Namibia and South Africa when the FNB Namibia Cricket Ground […] The post Namibia to kick-start Cricket Africa Cup appeared first on The Namibian.
Black News 
Namibia will host South Africa and Zimbabwe in a T20 Trinations series in August, which will be the forerunner to a revamped Africa Cup.
Cricket Namibia chief executive Johan Muller yesterday confirmed the news, saying the idea originated at last year’s historic T20 match between Namibia and South Africa when the FNB Namibia Cricket Ground was inaugurated.
“We had the South African and Zimbabwean delegations here for the inauguration, and during the match we held discussions and committed to host an annual T20 trinations series between the three countries to be hosted on a rotational basis. We then signed an agreement confirming that those three countries, which are currently the top three countries in Africa, will commit to a T20 series annually,” he said.
“Last month, when we hosted the ICC Africa Conference, the African delegations said we should use the trinations series as a building block or stepping stone towards the foundation of a new Africa Cup.
“So the newly-elected Africa Cricket Association decided that the trinations series will become the initial concept upon which the Africa Cup will be built. That tournament will then expand to a six-team tournament in Zimbabwe next year, which will be hosted at Victoria Falls to align with the new stadium they are building there,” he said.
Muller said that the trinations series will start on 28 August, with each team playing each other twice before the top two teams meet in the final.
After Zimbabwe’s departure, South Africa will remain for a three-match one-day international 50-over series against Namibia to be concluded on 12 September.
“It gives Namibian cricket fans 10 high-quality international matches to look forward to and hopefully the stadium will be packed,” he said.
Apart from that, Namibia will also host Nigeria and Hong Kong in June for a series against Namibia A, to be followed by the annual visit of an Indian state side in July.
Namibia’s national team, the FNB Eagles, will also complete their Cricket World Cup Division 2 series with tours to The Netherlands in July and the United States in October, before the three-year CWC Division 2 cycle is completed.
The top four teams will qualify for the final global qualifier for next year’s Cricket World Cup that Namibia will host along with South Africa and Zimbabwe, while the bottom four will still have an outside chance of progressing via another qualifying tournament against the top four teams in the Challenge League.
Muller said preparations for the 2027 Cricket World Cup are on track.
“We’ve already submitted our budgets to the International Cricket Council (ICC), we’ve received a visit from the ICC, and we have a visit from their production team in May.
“We’ve started putting together a local organising committee, and we’ve engaged the sport ministry, which is now driving the Cabinet submission and creating an executive director’s forum between different ministries for us to align with.
“We’ve also held quite a lot of the negotiations with Cricket South Africa, which is the main host, and we will continue to work closely with them,” he said.
The post Namibia to kick-start Cricket Africa Cup appeared first on The Namibian.
