By GRACE CHAILE –
THE Zambia netball team is courting England and Sri Lanka for friendly games in preparations for the Sydney 2015 World Cup Championships in Australia.
Netball Association of Zambia (NAZ) general secretary Pritchard Ngoma said playing friendlies with high ranked teams such as England who are ranked third in the world, would expose the team to a different style of play.
He said this was Zambia’s first qualification to the World Cup, hence the need to expose the players to as many friendly games as possible.
“We had talks with the Sri Lanka Community in Zambia to assist in arranging for a friendly game with Sri Lanka and I am positive it will be a success.  And also we had discussions with our partners UK Sports to organise a friendly with England,” he said.
Ngoma also revealed that Zimbabwe and Botswana were  the other teams that Zambia was likely to play with ahead of the World cup.
He said Zambia was avoiding playing a friendly with South Africa as they two could meet in the quarter-finals of the tournament.
However, Ngoma said plans to play friendlies were only possible with the availability of resources and appealed to the corporate world for sponsorship.
Meanwhile, national team coach Pauline Nsombo expressed happiness with the players continued positive response to training.
Nsombo said after a week of training, most of the players had regained full fitness, the situation which was a good thing for the team.
Zambia is in Pool D with Fiji, Wales and Uganda at the World Cup set for August 7 – 16.