BSA eyes success
“The team has been in camp for the past three weeks in Jwaneng, and last week the technical team finalized the final list of the squad and we very much believe that we are ready to qualify to the next round of the competition,” Public Relations officer of Botswana Softball Association (BSA) Kelly Monyake told
The association’s national league activities have been dormant since the post-Covid 19 state of emergency after Botswana Fibre Networks (BOFINET) did not renew their partnership with the association and local clubs suffering a major set-back to their development aspirations. Ahead of the competition in South Africa this week, the team was not able to be exposed to any high level competitions to test their mettle ahead of the regional WBSC Africa qualifiers. “We could only assemble a team and secure friendly games against other local sides, but due to time restraints and financial challenges we find ourselves in this situation, which is rather unfortunate,” she said. Quizzed on why the preparations began with only weeks remaining before the competition, Monyake revealed that it took the local softball executives some time to confirm the participation of the team in the competition due to various challenges, mainly finances. “We were a bit undecided on whether we should send a team or not, we had the calendar of events to know about it and I believe it is something [delay to make decisions], we must acknowledge our role in having the team prepare late and we should learn from it,” the BSA mouthpiece stated. Despite late preparations and lack of local softball activities, Monyake is rather upbeat that Botswana will qualify given the level of quality in the squad and the experience of some individuals who have walked this path before.
“Most of the players are young, it is really a youthful team, two of our youngest pitchers are 24 years old, the good thing about the team though is, most of them are experienced, they have been exposed to international competition before, they are not first timers. We strongly believe that we are moving in the right direction, we still have Kagiso Mogale, whom we believe will guide the young ones and lead us to success, the likes of Eric Simwanza who is the captain of the side, Brian Dekoker, assistant captain, these are people who bring with them invaluable experience and the good part is that they are expected to be part of the team for the next five years, so we are very much confident of advancing to the next round,” she added. Monyake further said, should they qualify, they are looking to reinforce their preparations program and implored the business community to come through and partner with them to ensure the team’s success, she added that it will allow some of the players who have missed out of getting selected due to injuries and opportunity to join the team.
She concluded by expressing disappointment that only three teams will take part in the tournament, highlighting that, the competition will not give a proper feedback in terms of the levels the team is at.