The Botswana Cricket Association is set to launch the Botswana ‘Thuntsha’ T20 (Twenty 20) League this coming week. The league has been organised to provide as many practice games as possible for representative cricketers of Botswana prior to the nation’s involvement in the ICC Africa Division 1 T20 Qualifiers.
The qualifiers will be held in Uganda from the 22nd -28th of February 2013. The league will consist of four teams in which the best senior and U19 players who play in the local leagues have been distributed in a draw to create a competitive playing environment. It is also mandatory that each team will need to field a minimum of four Batswana and two U19s players for each match played to ensure that the development of local cricketers is an on-going process.
The month long league format will see each team play the other twice and at the end of the league stages. The top two teams will play in a grand finale to be crowned champions of this inaugural league which the BCA hopes to be an on-going event every year.
The four teams were put up for sponsorship prior to this event and the companies that have sponsored the team of their choice have been given naming rights for the team. The four sponsors that have kindly come forward are UAE Exchange, a leading global remittance and foreign exchange company; Blue Tree, a new state of the art driving range, which also offers conferencing and leisure experience; Mall Motors, a company that sells quality used vehicles and Minjex, which deals in mining and industrial supplies.
The teams will be unveiled as the UAE Exchange Nkwe (Leopards), Blue Tree Tshukudu (Rhinos), Mall Motors Tau (Lions) and Minjex Mokwepa (Cobras). All matches will be played at the BCA Oval with four exciting T20 matches every weekend.
The league promises to be a grand spectacle with explosive T20 cricket as the name ‘Thuntsha’ suggests.
