19 Feb 2018

Major Bobby Khupe says he is searching for two more players to reinforce the women’s national team before going to the 2018 Women’s Softball World Championships in August.

Despite suffering three consecutive defeats, the team ended the recent two-day international friendly tournament positively by beating South Africa 4-2 at the National Diamond on Saturday.

They went down 12-0 to Japan in the first match and 6-4 to South Africa in the second encounter on Friday. Japan further defeated the local team 6-1 on Saturday leaving Khupe with a lot of thinking on the optitions to persue.

The hosts were starring a further defeat with South Africa holding a 2-0 lead through Casandra Kalpens and Lisa Erasmus’ bottom three inning runs in their seven innings encounter on Saturday evening.

But the locals fought back and secured a dramatic victory with Katlego Thande, Kelebogile Lesesere, Irene Mutunge and Iponeng Molapong converting runs in the top seven inning.

Khupe said although he was happy with the players improvement over their four matches in the tournament, he still felt that the team required further reinforcements on the left flank.

“Coming here I wanted to see what I can do with the players which I did not give a chance to play in South Africa during the qualifiers for the World Championships. So we have managed to get what we wanted and now I know which players to cut and which ones to keep. Though I am not totally satisfied and I am still going to hunt for one or two more players. I am looking at the infield especially my left flank. I had a problem with third base and shot stop,” said the coach.

Khupe said he would go to the next tournament in Jwaneng to scout for players who could play those positions as alternates to what he already had in the team. He also said he would trim the team from 23 to 19 players as time goes on.

Japan won the tournament after sailing to comfortable victories in all their matches. Apart from wins over Botswana, the Japanese further beat South Africa 12-1 and 11-1 over the two countries two match series.

The tournaments was organised to prepare the ladies team for the Women’s Softball World Championships which will be held in Japan. Botswana will be making their fourth appearance at the world championships after also qualifying in 1994, 2006 and 2010. Ends