FORMER Zimbabwe and Namibia coach Leonard Nhamburo is bullish on his team’s chances of winning the ICC Women’s T20 World Cup Qualifier Africa regional tournament after Rwanda made two convincing wins in the ongoing tournament in Botswana.
Rwanda opened their account with a 10-wicket win over Mozambique before dismissing Eswatini by 185 runs in their second match played earlier this morning.
Nhamburo’s charges bowled out Mozambique for a paltry 17 in 7.3 overs and got to the victory target in just 2.1 overs.
They then restricted Eswatini to 19 runs in nine overs, having scored 204/5 when they batted first and making a bold statement of their intentions early in the tournament.
This is Nhamburo’s first ICC sanctioned tournament in charge of Rwanda since joining the East Africa side as their head coach in 2021.
Speaking to EnterSportNews on his team’s realistic goal at the ongoing Women Africa Qualifier, Nhamburo says he wants his charges to become the best they can be.
“It’s every coaches goal to qualify, and the good thing is that at least I had time to work with the team, and we need to be the best,” Nhamburo told EnterSportNews.
Pressed to define his best and if by best if he meant qualifying for the T20 Global Qualifiers to be hosted by South Africa next year, Nhamburo did not mince his words.
“To be honest, I have never had more confidence in any team that I have worked with than this one, so we are looking forward to qualifying, but our goal is the semi-final first,” he said.
Rwanda is in the same group as Zimbabwe and the two teams will play each other in their final group match on Thursday.
Nhamburo is not daunted about the prospect of meeting his former paymasters, who have shored up their technical team by adding Walter Chawaguta as the Technical Director and former Lady Chevrons head coach Trevor Phiri as the fielding coach. The technical team already has former Zimbabwe fast bowler Trevor Garwe as the bowling coach and former Lady Chevrons all-rounder Sinikiwe Mpofu assistant to Adam Chifo.
“Zimbabwe is in our group, and we treat them like any other team. We need to win, so this has nothing to do with them being my former paymasters,” added Nhamburo.
The former Glenshire player’s team faced Eswatini today, and barring a big upset, Rwanda made light work of their opponents and set up a thrilling encounter with Tanzania that will decide who will join Zimbabwe into the semi-finals.
