NAIROBI, Kenya, Nov 12 – After years of playing abroad, Mercy Wanyama is back playing at home, and has signed for local champions Kenya Ports Authority (KPA) for the Women’s Basketball League Africa (WBLA) Zone Five qualifiers being staged in Nairobi.
For her new club, Wanyama has chosen a peculiar jersey number, 67, one that is familiar though in her family circles.
Mercy, speaking to Capital Sports, has revealed that the choice of jersey number was influenced by his elder brother, Victor Wanyama’s iconic number 67 jersey which he donned while playing for Celtic in his breakout spell in Scotland.
“At first, I wanted to wear the same jersey number as my elder brother MacDonald Mariga (17) but didn’t find it available here. In the national team, I always wear number 13 and again, it wasn’t available here. So I thought, why not, wear Victor’s famous number. After all, 6+7=13 so it is a win-win,” Mercy said, giggling with laughter in between.
Wanyama played for KPA years back, in her rookie years, and the only other local club she turned up for was Equity Hawks, also some years back.
She says she is delighted to be back home for these qualifiers, having spent the last two seasons in Lithuania and hopes her experience will spur the dockers to another WBLA qualification.
“It feels really great to play at home and I appreciate the support that we have received from people. We are getting stronger in each game. I believe the experience I have picked over the years will be key for KPA but all in all, as a team we need to keep working together, pulling each other and we go for the big dream,” opined Mercy.
She has been key for the dockers in their first two games in the qualifiers, and reiterates that their ambition is qualification.
She believes there will be competition, especially from the two Rwandese sides – APR and Reg (who she played for last season) but is quick to add that they have mapped out strategies to get victory.
“We have studied them (REG) and I know how most of them operate. They have a new coach and have changed a bit but majority of the core remains the same. We have also watched APR and we know how to tackle them. We have to be tight defensively and let our offense speak and once we make our shots count, it wouldn’t be a problem for us,” added Mercy.
