Netball squad fine-tunes in South Africa
Mosah Mokganedi | Friday July 18, 2014 12:03
The newly introduced Super Stars tournament takes place next month while Botswana hosts the Africa World Championships qualifiers in September.Botswana Netball Association (BONA) spokesperson, Ntebo Maplanka said a number of friendly matches have been lined-up to fully prepare the squad for the qualifiers.
Among the teams the local side will play is the visiting England Under-19 team next month. While here the English team will also play the Botswana Under-19 side and Namibia. Maplanka said preparations to host the qualifiers are progressing smoothly. Confederation of African Netball Associations (CANA) will take care of most of the logistics.
Nine nations will take part in the qualifiers with only one proceeding to the World Championships in Sydney, Australia next year. Botswana, Uganda, Swaziland, Tanzania, Kenya, Namibia, Lesotho, Zambia and Zimbabwe will fight to join South Africa and Malawi who have automatically qualified by virtue of their rankings.
Malawi and South Africa are ranked fifth and sixth in the world. Africa has been allocated three spots at the World Championships.
Botswana first qualified for the event in 2007 and finished ninth out of 16 countries. The team upset powerhouses like Trinidad and Tobago during the competition. However, the country did not do well in the 2011 event where it finished 12th.