Cricket Namibia has officially appointed former South Africa player Francois van der Merwe as the head coach of the team.
Cricket Namibia has released a statement that said, “We are delighted to announce the appointment of Francois van der Merwe as the women’s national head coach.”
While Van der Merwe made his List A debut in 1996, his first-class debut was in 2000 for the North West Dragons. He has played in several club leagues in England from 1997 to 2009. However, he started his coaching career in 2011 with the North West Dragons women’s team in South Africa as the head coach. In 2012, he obtained his Cricket South Africa level three certificate in 2012.
Notably, the Dragons women’s team has since won eight trophies in both 50-over and T20 formats and in the 2018-19 season, the team didn’t lose a single game and are the current national 50-over champions as well. Even, in 2018, he was the head coach of the South African emerging team in a tri-series involving England and Australia. Along with this, he was the coach of the national women’s academy at the High-Performance Centre in Pretoria also.
“The vision for the national team is to qualify for all major ICC tournaments and to develop the national players where they can get contracts in various T20 leagues all over the world,” van de Merwe said.
However, Cricket Namibia (CN) has been eager to develop the women’s game and Francois van der Merwe has been appointed for the next three years. While his aim to develop the national players to get contracts in all the T20 leagues around the world, he also wants the national team to qualify for all major International Cricket Council tournaments as well.
Francois van der Merwe has also said that it is important to grow the love for the game through participation in several tournaments, and this will help them to grow from softball cricket to hardball cricket. Meanwhile, Cricket Namibia is confident with the appointment of the new Head coach and believe in the rise of the game in our country.
