The national softball team has included a new chapter in sports history after advancing to the playoffs for the first time at the WBSC Men’s World Softball World Championship in Canada last week.
Botswana has never won more than a game at the competition with the highest finish being 9th in 2000, but this time around the local lads managed three wins to advance to group B. They won 1-0 against Czech Republic, before walloping Turkey 21-0 and proved their mettle against highly ranked Great Britain with a 1-0 victory. Overall they won three games and lost four; against Denmark (0-1), Japan (8-0), Venezuela (7-1) and lastly against current holders New Zealand (0-7).
Botswana’s voyage to improve rankings however was stopped by Argentina losing 5-0 to crush out of the tournament.Meanwhile Botswana’s Kagiso Mogale made his mark leading the tournament with 52 Strike-Outs since the beginning of the event.
The team arrived this week, through Tlokweng Border gate and proceeded to the National Diamond.
With this performance Botswana is expected to move up in the WBSC Softball rankings. This is again seen as a leap of faith by softball which has been included in the Olympics. Botswana was the Africa representative and it is anticipated to once again make history by qualifying for 2020 Tokyo Olympics. New Zealand defeated Australia, 6-4 to win Gold at the WBSC Men’s Softball World Championship. The win marks the seventh Gold Medal for New Zealand – a WBSC record.