New women’s national team set up
LETLHOGILE MPUANG
The Botswana Softball Association (BSA) has begun the process of assembling the country’s new senior women’s national team as they prepare for the 2020 Olympics qualifiers set for later this year. Team Botswana is expected to take part in the Africa Olympics Qualifiers billed for May in Pretoria, South Africa. A total of seven nations (Botswana, South Africa, Lesotho, Kenya, Tanzania, Uganda and Zimbabwe) are anticipated to take part in these qualifiers.
The best two top countries will go on to represent Africa at the Africa/Europe Olympic Qualifiers in Holland. BSA explained that a total of 40 female players (20 from the South & 20 from the North) were called into a camp led by two selected caretaker coaches. A panel of scouts then selected 23 players who will form the new national senior women’s national team.
“We are satisfied with what we got, we believe that the entire process went well,” BSA Spokesperson Kelebogile Seiti told Gazette Sport. “Part of the reason why we agreed to host Chukyo University from Japan was to give our players exposure to international softball, and we believe that it went very well. One other area that we wanted to improve is our technical team, and Japan being ranked high worldwide in Softball, we believed they would assist us in that aspect.”
Though Seiti fancies the country’s prospects of going beyond the first round of qualifiers (Africa Qualifiers) she expressed concerns in the low turn out of African nations at such events. “We are expecting about 7 countries, but we might up having less, based on what has been happening in the past. Most of these teams show interest in taking part in such events and later fail to confirm participation. We are likely to end having less than five teams at the African qualifiers,” she ended.
Moreover, the senior men’s national team have also began their preparations for this year’s world cup. The team was in camp this weekend in Gaborone and will play a number of friendly games as part of their preparations. A senior men All Stars team has been assembled and will also play regular friendly games with the current national team on a regular basis. Tebogo Macacana has been appointed as the All Stars team caretaker coach.