Moorosi Tsiane
United-11 beat Patel Car XI by 33 runs at Maseru Racecourse on Sunday and qualified for the National T20 Tournament semifinals to be hosted by the Lesotho Cricket Association (LCA) next month.
United-11 scored 236/9 runs in the match and will join the trio of already qualified Linare, Ajax and Cannibals.
LCA Development Officer Lekoatsa Chaka told the Lesotho Times that although the dates for the finals are yet to be released, they have proposed the weekend of 27 and 28 July 2019.
“The last weekend match was a catch up and United have now joined other three teams who have already qualified for the National T20 Tournament,” Chaka said.
Chaka said they are still in negotiations with some of the potential sponsors while also finalising the logistics of the tournament.
“We are in talks with the potential sponsors and we are working to ensure that we have signed all the agreements before we go public with the names.
“However, the negotiations are at an advanced stage and the sponsors are promising something big for the cricket community and the development of the sport. In the past, we have struggled to get sponsors and often fail to provide prize monies and just give the winners trophies and medals but we are working hard to change that because our teams are also struggling to make ends meet. This implies that the prize monies will also be helpful to them while also increasing the competition among the teams.
“We will meet later this week and hopefully, after that we will have finalised everything,” Chaka said.
He said they are leaving no stone unturned to improve the sport in terms of quality and also trying to popularise it across the country.
“So far we are on a right track in promoting the sport especially on the development perspective. This year only we have held different female competitions in different districts from which some teams qualified for last month’s Women National Championship. We are also doing the same thing for the male teams and there are already positives out of our initiatives which are promising,” Chaka said.
