Fired up for SA tourney

The national under-19 cricket team will compete at the Khaya Majola Cricket Week in South Africa, which kicked off yesterday and will run until Saturday.The matches are scheduled to take place at the Pietermaritzburg Oval, Hilton College, St Charles College and the Weston Patterson Oval. Namibia are scheduled to face North West in their first encounter, Mpumalanga in their second match and then Eastern Province in five days of back-to-back, non-stop cricket across all three formats - time cricket, T20 and 50 overs.The 16-team interprovincial tournament also includes last year's unofficial champions, the Central Gauteng Lions.The Namibians have prepared well and signed three rookie players - Nicol Loftie-Eaton, Jan Izak de Villiers and Mauritius Ngupita. All three are included in the squad and will also feature in the men's one day international (ODI) squad for the ODI Tri-Series in Oman in early January 2020. These young players, who finished Grade 12 recently, have proved to be very talented, thus adding a good balance of youth to the men's squad.Head coach Pierre de Bruyn expressed his excitement about welcoming these three players into the professional sportsman's life.“They are all very unique in their own way and add a lot to the balance of the squad. They have shown a lot of promise and are rewarded with rookie contracts for 2020.“I'm looking forward to being a part of their cricket journey and to helping and guiding them to become international stars,” De Bruyn added.The youthful Namibian side will benefit greatly from the tournament, which honours Khaya Majola, one of South Africa's leading cricketers in the 1970s and 1980s, before he became a top administrator in the game he loved.Majola played a pivotal role in the setting up of a new development programme in the post-apartheid era.Cricket South Africa was then known as the United Cricket Board.Born in the New Brighton township in Port Elizabeth, Majola went on to have a notable provincial career, being one of only three players to score over 2 000 runs and take over 200 wickets in 216 non-racial three-day matches organised by the South Africa Cricket Board between 1971 and 1991.Namibian squad consists of Ramon Wilmot, JC Balt, Dian Neethling, Nicol Loftie-Eaton, Jan Izak de Villiers, Matthew de Gouveia, Waylan Cloete, Mauritius Ngupita, Addo Iita, Divan la Cock, Etienne Beukes, Stefan Bezuidenhout and Scott Winborn.LIMBA MUPETAMI

Fired up for SA tourney

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Namibian Sun 2026-11-10

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Fired up for SA tourney

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Namibian Sun 2026-11-10

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