Namibian cricket teams are ready to face Hong Kong in the opening round of the Intercontinental Cup and World Cricket League (WCL) Championships respectively.
Namibia commence their campaign this coming Sunday with a four-day match against their Asian counterparts at the Wanderers Sports Club fields in Windhoek. The team has been intensively preparing over the last six weeks. The Intercontinental Cup is the International Cricket Council’s (ICC) four-day first-class competition for leading associate and affiliate members (AMs). The event was first played in 2004, but now take on much greater significance with the winner in 2017 to challenge the 10th-ranked full member for the opportunity to play Test cricket. Besides Hong Kong, Namibia will compete against Ireland, Afghanistan, Papua New Guinea, Scotland, the United Arab Emirates (UAE) and the Netherlands over the two-year span in search of promotion.
On the 15th of this month, the Namibian ODI team take on Hong Kong in their first ICC World Cricket League Championship match. The team qualified by virtue of being placed 2nd in the 2015 ICC World Cricket League Division Two on home soil at the beginning of this year. Ireland and Afghanistan will not compete in the tourney, as both are eligible to qualify for the 2019 World Cup directly via rankings. Instead, Kenya and Nepal have been included in the tourney. The WCL Championship is the ICC’s premier 50-over competition for the leading associate members.