Six African netball teams to fight it out for Netball World Cup 2019 qualification

From the 13 – 18 August 2018, the Netball World Cup Regional Qualifier – Africa will see six nations compete to qualify for next year’s tournament in Liverpool.

The event, to be held at Zambia’s Olympic Youth Development Centre in Lusaka, will see Zambia, Botswana, Uganda, Kenya, Namibia and Zimbabwe fight for the two qualifying spots on offer.

Competition between the nations is likely to be fierce, with Uganda – ranked 7^th in the world starting as favourites to secure a place in Liverpool. Zimbabwe are the next highest ranked team in the competition at 13^th, behind Zambia – who qualified for the last World Cup in Sydney 2015 – in 17^th, Botswana (22^nd) and Namibia (28^th).

Despite the difference in world rankings, the qualifier looks set to be close – in June’s Debmarine Netball Namibia Pent Series Namibia came out on top, ahead of Zimbabwe in second and Zambia in third.

Despite having qualified automatically for next summer’s World Cup, due to their top-six world ranking, Malawi will also compete at the Regional Qualifiers – Africa, as the qualifying tournament doubles up as the Africa Netball Championship.

View the schedule below to see which teams will play each other over the four days.

Schedule

Monday 13 August

Zambia vs Botswana

Tuesday 14 August

Malawi vs Zimbabwe (Africa Netball Championship)

Namibia vs Uganda

Kenya vs Zambia

Botswana vs Zimbabwe

Wednesday 15 August

Malawi vs Uganda (Africa Netball Championship)

Namibia vs Kenya

Zimbabwe vs Zambia

Botswana vs Malawi (Africa Netball Championship)

Thursday 16 August

Uganda vs Kenya

Zambia vs Malawi (Africa Netball Championship)

Zimbabwe vs Namibia

Uganda vs Botswana

Friday 17 August

Zimbabwe vs Kenya

Malawi vs Namibia (Africa Netball Championship)

Zambia vs Uganda

Kenya vs Botswana

Saturday 18 August

Botswana vs Namibia

Kenya vs Malawi (Africa Netball Championship)

Uganda vs Zimbabwe

Namibia vs Zambia