Teboho Molapo
MASERU — The Lesotho Cricket Association (LCA) is holding trials to select the national under-15 and under-17 teams.
The sides will represent Lesotho at the Carnival City Cricket Festival in South Africa on August 5.
The festival is an annual series involving teams from the southern African region.
The under-15 team meanwhile will ultimately represent Lesotho at the ICC Regional Under-15 Championships in Botswana in December.
The trials are taking place in Lesotho’s two cricket hotbeds – in Maseru at Maseru Day and in Teyateyaneng at Ascension High School.
Fourteen players will be chosen in each region for both sides before each is whittled down to 14 players.
LCA development officer Lekoatsa Chaka, who is also acting as coach of the national teams, said they hoped to announce the final squads by July 1.
“The trials began last Tuesday and are being held every Tuesday and Thursday before the teams are announced possibly on July 1,” Chaka told the Sunday Express on Friday.
The selection process is wide with not only Lesotho’s cricket clubs attending but schools as well.
“After we have selected the teams we are going to Benoni to the Carnival City Cricket Festival which is organised by the Easterns Cricket Club in South Africa,” Chaka said.
He said the event will therefore provide much-needed competition before the ICC Regional Under-15 Championships.
Meanwhile, Chaka revealed a top-four tournament will be held on August 28 to decide Lesotho’s cricket champions.
The mini-championship will be contested by Ajax Cricket Club, Lerotholi Polytechnic, Vampires of the National University of Lesotho and Bails Cricket Club after the regular league season failed to produce a winner because of disagreements over the rules used.
“The league was taken as a pilot . . . there were no stringent regulations or official rules. That’s why we had problems,” Chaka said.
He said an improved cricket season which will see several new clubs will start in September.
The league was meant to have begun in May.
“The league will be expanded from last year where there were five teams. There will be 10 to 12 teams in the league,” Chaka said.
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