The Debmarine Desert Jewels’ chances of representing Namibia at the 2023 Netball World Cup disappeared after a 43-45 defeat against Botswana on Wednesday.

The Africa Netball World Cup qualifiers are underway at the University of Pretoria (Tuks) Rembrandt Hall.

Namibia, who had a little bit of hope of making it out of the group stages as runner-up, needed to beat Botswana and then pray for Tanzania and South Africa to beat Zimbabwe in their third and fourth matches at the championship.

In their match against Botswana Wednesday afternoon, Namibia started off well and had a five-point lead just five minutes into the game, but lack of consistency saw them give away turnover balls which Botswana capitalised on – levelling the score by the ninth minute.

At the end of the first quarter, Botswana was in the lead with a point ending 11-12.

The second quarter saw Namibia making numerous unforced errors and Botswana once again took advantage of that to increase their score with a five-point gap at halftime.

Team Botswana was on cruise mode at this point and started indicating their intentions of winning their first match at the championship as they forced the Namibian girls to play a rushed game, continuously giving balls that could have given them points on the scoreboard away.

The quarter ended 20-25 at halftime.

Botswana scored 12 points in the third quarter compared to Namibia’s 11. The Namibian team once again found the flow of the game a bit too difficult as they continued with their unforced errors and failure to capitalise on turnovers throughout the third quarter. This quarter ended 31-37 for Botswana.

As in their last three matches against Tanzania, South Africa and Zimbabwe, the Namibian team dominated the fourth quarter but it was once again a little bit too late as they bowed out of the competition with a 43-45 defeat to their neighbours Botswana.

Namibia, who are in Pool A alongside host South Africa, Tanzania, Botswana and Zimbabwe, will now have to wait and see where they are placed in the group at the end of the group matches. They are now scheduled to compete for positions from fifth to ninth at the championships.

Namibia’s next match at the competition will be on Friday.

Source: The Namibian Press Agency