BY BOCKARIE ALIEU
232NEWS, FREETOWN
The Sierra Leone Senior Women’s National Cricket team has departed the shores of Sierra Leone to Botswana. The Ladies Patriots will be taking part in the ICC Women’s T20 World Cup Africa Qualifier in Botswana.
Sierra Leone will start the T20 Women’s World Cup qualifier from division 2 together with the host countries Botswana, Cameroon, Eswatini, Kenya, Lesotho, Malawi, and Mozambique.
Two countries among the 8 countries will qualify to join the division1 qualifier tournament that will be hosted in Uganda in December 2023.
The delegation will depart today and will arrive in Botswana tomorrow. The tournament is scheduled to kick-off on the 31st of August 2023 and onto the 9th of September 2023.
The competition will be played on a round-robin basis with the two teams with the highest points qualifying to contest in the division1 qualifier.
The two qualifiers will join Namibia, Nigeria, Rwanda, Tanzania, Uganda and Zimbabwe. The Women’s delegation bade farewell to the Sports Ministry on Tuesday 29th August before they crossed to Lungi were they slept and boarded their flight to Ghana in the morning.
At the Sports Ministry, the Deputy Minister of Sports Lawrence Mbayo addressed the ladies telling them to make Sierra Leone proud by returning home with laurels.
The Deputy Minister said the Minister is absent due to anther busy schedule. He told them to act as Ambassadors while representing Sierra Leone in Botswana.
He went on that Cricket has been doing well in the past years and that he believed they will continue to win more laurels.
The Chairman of Cricket Sierra Leone assured the Ministry that the team will surely qualify to the next stage, noting that qualifying to the next stage will give the chance to qualify for the All Africa Games which is also serving as qualifier for the Olympic Games.
Beresford Bournes-Coker will lead the delegation to Botswana. In the delegation are Sarah Johnson (Coach), Fatimata Parkinson (Captain), Ramatu Turay, Janet Kowa Ann-Marie Monica Kamara, Alice Fillie, Isha Quee, Celina Bull, Marie Turay, Hassanatu Sawaneh, Isatu Koroma, Zainab A Kamara and Fatu Pessima. Elizabeth French travelled with the team to be one of the officiating umpires in the competition.
