Gems in good start in Namibia

THE Zimbabwe senior netball team began their campaign at the Pent Series underway in Windhoek, Namibia, on a good note when they beat Botswana 52-40 in their first game of the competition on Wednesday.

The Gems, who left for Namibia on Monday by road, put up a good show on the first day of the competition to overpower Botswana in this five-nation event that ends on Sunday.

The series is featuring Zimbabwe, Botswana, Swaziland, Zambia and hosts Namibia.

Speaking from Windhoek, coach Lloyd Makunde said although they emerged winners in their opening encounter, there is still some work to do ahead of their second match today.

“We are actually going to training this very moment and work on the shortcomings we noticed in yesterday’s (Wednesday) game.

“The first quarter we were down by one point but I made some changes in the second quarter and it worked to our advantage and the girls played better,” said Makunde.

Zimbabwe had a break yesterday and will be back on the court today when they take on Namibia.

They have a date against Swaziland tomorrow and conclude their campaign against Zambia on Sunday.

The senior women side made it clear ahead of this competition that they are going for the gold medal despite meeting just for a few days before their departure.

One of the senior players Pauline Jani said they were gunning for the ultimate prize.

“We have been encouraging each other, with the new players, during our training that we should not be intimidated. I just told them we have to play our normal game, the normal game they play here, nothing has changed. ‘’So I believe we can do it. “We will do our best, we want to bring back gold although most of the players are still new,” said Jani.

The series is a world-ranking competition and Zimbabwe, who are currently 16th on the International Netball Federation rankings, are looking at moving up the ladder.

Zambia are the best ranked among the participating countries, sitting on position 15 and they are the favourites together with Zimbabwe to win the series. — BBC Sport