Namibia and Zimbabwe series falls foul of COVID

Following the Zimbabwean government imposing new lockdown measures due to a rising number of COVID-19 cases, the upcoming series between the women’s teams of Namibia and Zimbabwe has been postponed. 

Instead of playing the series, Cricket Namibia has announced a national training camp’s organisation and has announced the names of the fourteen players who will be taking part. 

Namibia National Camp Squad

Irené van Zyl (c), Yasmeen Khan (wk), Adri van der Merwe, Kayleen Green, Suné Wittmann, Sylvia Shihepo, Arassta Diergaardt, Wilka Mwatile, Mekelanye Mwatile, Reehana Khan, Shiomwenyo Namusha, Didi Foerster, Victoria Hamunyela and Phia Gerber.

The new lockdown measures in Zimbabwe have also affected the country’s domestic cricket. When talking about the effects of the lockdown on the sport a Zimbabwe Cricket spokesperson was quoted by ESPN Cricinfo as stating that ‘This is a very challenging situation, but ZC’s aim is to reschedule all the affected events and fixtures – including the elite men’s domestic T20 competition which was scheduled to begin this Monday – for them to be played as soon as it is deemed safe to do so’. 

The now-postponed series would have marked the return of both nation’s women’s teams to international cricket following the start of the global pandemic. The fixtures would have also seen Francois van der Merwe’s first series in charge of the Namibian Women’s team after being appointed in August 2020.   

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