CRICKET Namibia's T20 Global T20 tournament kicks off at the Wanderers field in Windhoek today when the Richelieu Namibian Eagles take on the strong South African franchise, DP World Lions, while the Pakistani franchise Lahore Qalandars make up the inaugural three-team tournament that will continue with five matches scheduled till Monday, 5 September.
The tournament will serve as preparation for the T20 World Cup coming up in Australia in October, as well as Namibia's Cricket World Cup League 2 series in Papua New Guinea in less than two weeks against the hosts and the USA.
National coach Pierre de Bruyn said they were prepared and ready, and looking forward to the tournament.
"We are very excited about this opportunity to play against top quality teams, while it's the perfect preparation for the T20 World Cup. You can only measure yourself against good opposition and that's what we're going to get against these lineups. The Lions have got a very good squad with quality players and about four or five players who have played for South Africa, and that's exactly what we want. We want to test ourselves against quality players, we want to improve our skills and to measure where we are with our skill sets," he said.
"The next four games and hopefully five if we reach the final, will be really important preparation games for us, from a selection point of view. We feel comfortable with our combinations and we want to give guys game time in their roles, because we've got a 99 percent idea of how that World Cup squad is going to look like, and we want to use these games for the guys to get stuck into those roles and trust them in those roles," he added.
The Namibian squad will be captained by Gerhard Erasmus and includes a few up and coming players like Divan La Cock, Lohan Louwrens and Mauritius Ngupita, while the 18-year-old budding pace bowler and all-rounder Dirkie Theunissen has been included for the first time. The experienced allrounder David Wiese, however, is not available, while Namibia's most capped player and top run scorer Craig Williams has announced his retirement and will play his farewell match for Namibia on Sunday.
The 38-year-old Williams, who represented Namibia for 15 years, was Namibia's most prolific batsman, scoring a total of 15 339 runs, while also taking 273 wickets, but De Bruyn said a lot of competition had emerged for the opening batting role.
"Craig has made a decision to rather invest in the corporate world where he's got his own business. We would still like to have Craig in the system, but over the last couple of months a lot of competition has been created in that role of opening the batting. A player like Divan La Cock has established himself in that position, and then there is Stephen Baard, Michael van Lingen and Lohan Louwrens, so there's five guys fighting for two spots and there were no guarantees," he said.
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"Craig has been an absolute legend for Namibian cricket over the last 15 years, but in the same breath I'm excited to see these young guys and build them for the next three years, to see how they're going to perform," he added.
The DP Lions, meanwhile, have sent a strong side that will be captained by South African limited overs captain Temba Bavuma and includes other national players like Reeza Hendricks and Bjorn Fortuin, and under 19 national players Wandile Makwetu and Dominic Hendricks.
The series will probably be the last time that Namibia will be in action on home soil before they leave for PNG and the T20 World Cup and De Bruyn called on the Namibian public to come and support them.
"We're going out there to win - we are in front of our home supporters, and it's almost a farewell opportunity for the supporters to give the players a farewell, because they won't see them again until the World Cup on television. I feel that we very well prepared regardless of the outcome and I'm very happy with where the guys are, with their skills, their preparation and their fitness," he said.
