Zimbabwe’s national women’s cricket team will look to intensify their preparations for the ICC T20 World Cup Qualifiers later this year when they get down to business in the Capricorn Women’s Tri-Series which starts in Namibia on Wednesday.
The Lady Chevrons left the country on Tuesday for the triangular series which will feature the hosts and East African nation Uganda.
The Namibia tour caps off a busy period for the players who were in action in the domestic Fifty50 Challenge and the Women’s T20 Cup before going into a pre-tour 10-day training camp.
Lady Chevrons’ team manager Caroline Nyamande, who also doubles as the Zimbabwe Cricket (ZC) Women’s Cricket Coordinator said they will use the tournament to prepare not only for the ICC World Cup Qualifiers later this year but also the inaugural ICC Women’s U19 T20 World Cup.
The International Cricket Council (ICC) last week confirmed South Africa as hosts of the inaugural Women’s Under-19 World Cup, which will be held next year.
Zimbabwe are expected to assemble a strong team for the competition since players as young as 13 were involved in the recent domestic women’s competitions.
“We have a squad that blends experience and under 19s coming up the ranks,” Nyamande said in an interview with The Namibian.
“We are thankful for the invitation (to Namibia) and are confident that our full-strength squad will deliver the fours, sixes and all the excitement that comes with the T20 version of the game.”
The series will be the first outing for former Zimbabwe international Brent, who recently replaced Adam Chifo at the helm.
“We have a new coach Gary Brent who is eager to lead in the first series as a national team coach. We are bringing the bulk of the squad that participated at the ICC Women’s World Cup global qualifier we hosted last November,” Nyamande added.
Zimbabwe will enter the triangular series as the highest ranked team at number 11 in the global T20 rankings.
They are followed by Uganda who are 19th while the hosts Namibia are placed 21st. Given the series has ICC T20 International status, there will be valuable ranking points for the best-performing sides and this makes Zimbabwe the team to beat.
Zimbabwe will open their account tomorrow against Uganda in the morning before playing the hosts later in the afternoon at CCD field in Windhoek.
Friday is a rest day, but the action continues on Saturday, Sunday and Monday, with the final scheduled to take place at 14h00 on Tuesday, 26 April.
All the games will be broadcast on Cricket Namibia’s Facebook page and will be made visible on Women’s CricZone social media platforms.
7⃣ days ✅
3⃣ teams ✅
1⃣0⃣ T20Is ✅The Capricon Tri-Nation Series is here and you need not go anywhere else to watch these spectacular T20Is as we will be live broadcasting the series on https://t.co/YtkPnozlVM from April 20.@CricketNamibia1 @FantasyAkhada @FastandUp_India pic.twitter.com/7U8HitFlKa
— Women’s CricZone (@WomensCricZone) April 15, 2022