Cricket origin in Namibia

Hi friends in this articl let us discuss about how cricket was originated and how the development process going on in Namibia.Most of the cricket fans might be familiar about Namibia in cricket, as Namibia played in 2003 cricket world cup

The history of Namibia goes back to the year 1915, when they had their first ever match,which was recorded.This match was played during the firts world war period in 1915 as mentioned above, and the match took place between the South African soldiers and locals at the Okanjande concentration camp (which is, southwest of Otjiwarongo) after the Germans had surrendered to the SA troops

Rapid development of cricket

But even prior to this match many photographic evidence says that cricket was being played in Windhoek as early as 1909, when Namibia was very much a German colony. In 1930, the South West Africa Cricket Union was formed and this is a great boost for all the South West African countries as form that time with the help of the Union they could play organized matches.

And as a major step in 1954 the South West African team toured South Africa and they played against Liesbeek Park, a club side from Cape Town. The union was doing a great job and they also got permission to send a South West Africa team to participate in the South African Country districts tournaments, from 1962 onwards,on an annual basis.

This is the turning point for the players as they got good exposure and also players started to excel and apart from this the game also became more popular. Shortly after independence, the Namibia Cricket Board was constituted.

Namibia - At International Level

Really its a great prestige for some of the clubs in Namibia as they were originated during and immediately after World War 1 still exists and they have a proud history. In 1992, Namibia became the 19th Associate Member of the ICC and after that they had participated in all the major ICC Associate Trophies, and the greatest success for them was in 2003, when they Qualified for the 2003 ICC cricket world cup, which was held in South Africa, Zimbabwe and Kenya.

They qualified for this world cup after they took part in ICC Trophy 2001 held at Canada and finished runner up in the tournament as they lost to Netherland in the final.As a result both the winners and runner had qualified for the 2003 ICC cricket world cup.

But they had a disastorous wold cup as they lost all the matches they played, yet it was great for qualifying.Their world cup campaign includes the following matches

i)Their first match in the World Cup was the opening match of the tournament itself and it was against Zimbabwe on 10 February 2003 in Harare with where they lost by 86 runs

ii)On 16th February 2003 they lost their second match also and this time to Pakistan by 171 runs,

iii)The third match was a good match for them when they played against England and they were about to bring an upset but they lost by 55 runs and the most encouraging part was AJ Burger of the Namibian team received the mane of the Match award for his innings of 85 runs from 86 balls.In this match another encouraging thing for Namibia was RJ van Vuuren took 5 wickets by giving only 43 runs in 10 overs.The image of AJ Burger is shown below

iv)Then it was Indias turn as they crushed Namibia by a 181 run

v)Their worst defeat came against the Australian where they suffered a 256 run defeat.They were dismissed for just 45 runs in response to 301 runs by the Australians.

vi)Their last match of the tournament was against their fellow qualifiers NNetherland and they lost this match by 64 runs.

Apart from this, in 2008 - 2009, Namibia also finished second as runners up to Ireland in the Intercontinental Cup.When it comes to club matches,Namibia has participated for many seasons in the South Africa Amateur Leagues and during this club tournament they proved very a competitive against some of the top clubs there.

For the last three years the development of the Youth cricket has grown tremendously and now has the age group teams are participating in the ICC-ACA tournaments and they are performing well.The local Namibians are attracted towards this game mainly due to the development programme which was set up by the Association.

As a result of this the game of cricket continues to grow at a rapid rate and at present it is  recognized as one of the most successful sporting codes in Namibia, and especially the youth are attracted towards this game.After its independence in 1990,Namibian cricket has grown at a rapid rate.

During the World Cup Qualifier in 2009, many expeted Namibia will qualify for 2011 world cup but its performances were not consistent. They had  comprehensive wins against Oman, UAE and Kenya, but they lost to to Afghanistan by 21 runs in the final match in the Super Eights which was very crucial and this loss which resulted in Namibia not qualifying for ODI status as well as ICC CWC 2011.

Development Programme

i)Soft ball cricket:

Initially the soft ball format of cricket was introduced for young people this introductory form of cricket has been very successful throughout Namibia and it forms a part of the MTC National Sponsorship of cricket in Namibia.The popularity of this game was made among the age group of 5 to 9 and it was responsible with the help of the West Coast mini-cricket programme .

Initially there were only 4 schools participating in this tournament in 2003 and it has expanded to 12 schools. And as a result two brothers, Shaloko and Zhivago Groenewald,who participated in this programme in 2003,are selected to represent the Namibian U/15 level matches.

Every weekend there will be mini cricket conducted in the central region and all home games for the national cricket team usually has mini cricket festivals during lunch breaks.As a result this brings a minimum of about 200 children to come here and this makes the MTC grass-roots more visible.

ii)Hard ball cricket:

The school league programme which was set up by the Crickt Namibia was very active and it is well utilized in the Central and Eastern regions.

Usually in this programme U/13 and U/15 format of game is followed and this includes eight schools which compete against each other. During December 2008,different age group teams form Namibia have participated in the Cricket South Africa tournaments and they were mostly U/11, U/13, U/15, U/17 and U/19 levels.The image below shows the Namibian U/19 team.

iii)Other Development Programmes

Apart form all these activities they have a strong association with Cricket South Africa, and the South African cricket Association helps for the development of cricket in Namibia by allowing them to participate in the amateur South African Airways three-day and one-day provincial tournament and this is a great opportunity for the Namibian team as they have great exposure