Governor Mark Capes chatted with St Helena's cricketers before they left on 10 April (picture courtesy of Nick Stevens)

St Helena’s national cricket team will be facing an opponent under pressure in its first-ever venture into an overseas tournament.

The head of the Zambian Cricket Union says his own team “must” win the championship in South Africa if it is to get back into a higher division, reports The Times of Zambia.

St Helena is due to compete against ten other countries in the 2012 Pepsi International Cricket Council (ICC) Africa World Cricket league T20 Division Three tournament.

That’s if they all turn up. The newspaper says the Zambia national body “was still scouting for the US$ 5,000 participation fee for the championship and was confident the money will be found before the team leaves next week.”

Unlike the St Helena squad – which has organised a host of challenges to raise money from the community – ZCU president Reuben Chama has appealed to corporate sponsors to put up the fee.

He tells The Times: “We are confident because we have picked a strong team consisting of best players capable of handling this assignment. It is a must that we perform well at this tournament to get back our Division Two rating.”

From Facebook:

Q: Is this the team?

Nick Stevens: no thats the cheer leaders the team flying out next week once they finish the first bit of the runway

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LINK:
ZCU picks 14 for Pepsi tourney – The Times of Zambia