Zimbabwe lose places in T20 World Cup Qualifiers

The turmoils in Zimbabwe cricket are never-ending. The African nation faced another setback as ICC named the replacement sides to take part instead of Zimbabwe in the upcoming T20 World Cup qualifiers. Nigeria will be taking the 14th place in the qualifiers. They shall be the third team from the African region after Namibia and Kenya.

The Men’s Qualifier will feature Nigeria, UAE (hosts), Hong Kong, Ireland, Jersey, Kenya, Namibia, Netherlands, Oman, Papua New Guinea, Scotland, Singapore and two teams from the Americas Final due to be held later this month. The top six sides from this tournament will advance to the 2020 Men’s T20 World Cup. The competition shall be played in October-November next year in Australia.

Zimbabwe’s removal from the qualifying process for the Men’s T20 World Cup thus ensures the presence of at least one Associate nation in the tournament. The top eight sides on the ICC T20I rankings at the end of 2018 including host Australia qualified for the Super 12s automatically. The remaining four teams will come through the Qualifiers.

The six teams that clear the Qualifiers will join Bangladesh and Sri Lanka in the opening round. The teams will then be divided into two groups of four. The top two teams in each group of the opening round will then join the main draw.

Namibia women get an opportunity

In case of women’s cricket, Namibia have a chance of entering the ICC Women’s T20 World Cup 2020 in Australia. Namibia finished second, behind Zimbabwe, in the African Qualifiers. They will now fight for the two qualifying spots for the ICC Women’s T20 World Cup. The qualifying tournament is set to begin later this month.

Zimbabwean cricketers were unsettled by this development. A few expressed their anguish on Twitter.

Just speechless at this decision by @ICC
So if @ICC have anymore surprises for us please don’t be shy, just get them ALL out now so that we can plan our unemployed lives a bit better.

Regards

An unemployed ,frustrated and out of opportunities Cricketer pic.twitter.com/SHdMVbdecu

— Sikandar Raza (@SRazaB24) August 6, 2019

I’m really trying to fathom @ICC ‘s thinking behind this? It was very clear that we had until October before the next meeting in Dubai to have everything in order, progress was being made daily. I sincerely wish the other world bodies would support us from a players perspective. https://t.co/FVTjBp5k3m

— Brendan Taylor (@BrendanTaylor86) August 6, 2019