Namibia’s senior national netball team, the Desert Jewels, won their opening match of the 2021 Africa Netball Cup when they beat Botswana 50-41 at the Wanderers indoor field Tuesday night.

The African Netball Championship, which is being used a qualifier for the 2022 Commonwealth Games that will be held in England and the 2023 Netball World Cup slated for South Africa, kicked off on Tuesday and ends next Monday.

In their opening match of the competition, the Desert Jewels won the toss to centre and started dominating play as they took a four-point lead just five minutes into the match, but their lack of consistency at scoring all their chances brought Botswana back into the match.

The Batswana team levelled the score to eight points apiece with just three minutes to go in the first quarter, but the Namibian team’s fast passing game once again won them possession during a turn-over and took the lead to end the quarter with an 11-8 lead.

In the second quarter, Namibia extended their lead to 10 points after just five minutes, while at the same time restricting their opponents to just scoring two points in the opening seven minutes.

Botswana got back into the match after making use of their turn-over goals and reduced the gap to six points, with the quarter ending 25-19.

The third quarter saw Botswana coming out the stronger side and winning all the turn-overs, allowing them to finish the penultimate quarter with a 36-30 score line.

The final quarter saw Namibia extending their lead after centering. Their opponents continued blocking them but Namibia’s wing defence made sure to block out any interception from Botswana and Anna Kasper converted all the chances she got to record a final score of 50-41 in the hosts’ favour.

Namibia’s coach, Julene Meyer, told Nampa after the match she was happy with the results but they need to up their game as they have stronger opponents ahead of them.

Namibia will take on Zimbabwe in their second fixture at the competition on Wednesday.

Source: The Namibian Press Agency