NAIROBI, Kenya, Jul 19 – Cricket Kenya has asked the Ministry of Sports to step in and lobby the International Cricket Council (ICC) to include the national women’s under 19 team in September’s World Cup qualifiers.
Director of women’s cricket Pearlyne Omamo said Kenya has been excluded from the qualifiers – set for Botswana – for failure to meet the requirements for competing in an ICC tournament.
“We need their help in lobbying the ICC to allow Kenya to compete in the qualifiers just like they did for the Commonwealth qualifiers in Malaysia. ICC understood back then that we were in a transition and allowed us to compete. That is the same argument we are using this time round, and we need the ministry to help us like they did last time,” Omamo said.
She said the ladies stand to gain a lot from competing in the qualifiers, which will comprise Malawi, Rwanda, Nigeria, Mozambique, Namibia, Sierra Leone, Uganda and Tanzania.
“First and foremost, playing in this qualifier helps with our development objective as far as cricket is concerned. It is an opportunity to gauge the performance of the girls with other players in the same age group. Therefore, it would be detrimental to their growth if they miss out on the competition,” she said.
The team is to begin training today although Omamo expects the number of players reporting for duty to the three camps at Simba Union, Ruaraka and Lavington will increase in August.
“They will be training mostly in Ruaraka although we will have two more camps in Lavington and Simba Union. We are hoping that training will intensify by August during the voting period when schools will be closed for the General Elections. We will use this as an opportunity and hope the number of players in the camp will have increased,” Omamo said.
At the same time, the Women’s Cricket League is set to bowl off this Saturday.
The league has been divided into two – Super Division and Division – which will each contain four teams.
The Super Division League comprises Lenana Twigas, Nelion Kibokos, Batian Farasis and Savannah Simbas.
Sharks, Dolphins, Whales and Turtles make up the Division 1 League.
