By Bockarie Allieu
FREETOWN, July 25 (SALONE TIMES) – The Sierra Leone Male and female national U-19 teams are both preparing for the ICC Africa division 2 World Cup qualifiers in Nigeria and Botswana. The female team will depart the sores of Sierra Leone at the end of August 2022 to Botswana. The female team falls in group B together with the host country Botswana, Uganda and Namibia.
In group A are Nigeria, Rwanda, Malawi Mozambique and Tanzania. The female tournament will kick-off on the 1st September and end on the 13 September 2022. Two teams will qualify from each group for the semi-final stage of the tournament and the two finalists will automatically qualify to the division1 stage of the qualifying.
The male team will head to Nigeria, Abuja in September 2022. The tournament will kick-off on the 21st September and will end on the 2nd October 2022. In the male U-19 Sierra Leone lies in group B with host country Nigeria, Botswana and Rwanda.
In group A are Kenya Malawi, Ghana and Mozambique. Both teams started the preparations few months ago and they have now reached the crucial stage after cutting down to 18 players each to enable them train as a team.
In this regard, the two newly elected board members Abu Oleone Kargbo and Alhaji Koroma both bought 85 bundles of pure water for the two teams. Speaking on behalf of the two, Abu Kargbo said water is very essential to human life.
He went on that it is also a less burden on the association as they will now use the money for water to buy other necessary things for the two teams. He went on that they have the plan to do more than this but the finance is the problem.
He though appealed to Cricket members, Sierra Leoneans and business houses to come on board and boost the training of the two teams. Speaking on behalf of the teams the Team Manager of the U-19 male team Daniel Koroma thanked the two board members for their goodwill gesture to the team.
He went on that other will follow the foot step of the two board members. Beside water, he said the two teams need first aid kits, foot wear and several other things which he said the association doesn’t have enough money to buy all these necessary things for team.
But with the help coming from the people and business houses and the government, the association will spend the little they have to camp the team and motivate the players with fat allowances.
Daniel assured the two board members and the people of Sierra Leone that the two teams in return will pay them by returning home with laurels.
