Queens outsmart the Proteas

Queens outsmart the Proteas

Malawi national netball team ‘the queens’ on Friday proved to Africa why they are the contingent’s high ranked team when they defeated South Africa ‘the Proteas’ 47-42 in the diamond netball challenge cup.

South Africa, Malawi’s biggest rival went into the match holding a psychological boost as they had an overwhelming support from their fans.

However, the queens were not put back by the Proteas psychological edge as both teams started on the brighter note and that was evidenced with scores being on level terms, 5-5. slowly the queens started to dominate and they would soon open a five point lead.10-5.

South Africa did crawl back into the game to reduce the deficit to two points through their veteran shooter Chrisna Bootha 10-8. However queen’s shooters Mwayi Kumwenda and Sindi Simutowe bagged in a basket each before Bootha netted two baskets to keep the queens on check. The first quarter ended 12-10.

In the second quarter, the Proteas had an impressive start scoring three unanswered baskets, but it did not take longer before the queens had their foothold into the game. Simutowe, bagging the baskets on a very high accuracy rate to end the second quarter on 24-21.

In the third quarter, the Proteas started looking tired and failed to match the Queens’s splendid passing and composure, and the queens took advantage of that to open a 10 point gap, before the Proteas reduced it to 8 points going into the final qurter.38-30.

In the final quarter South Africa was a much improved side and opened a five point lead but Malawi would still manage to shorten it to a 2 point gap. The Proteas hopes of forcing through a victory were dealt with a huge blow in the final minutes of the game, as they had to take off their veteran shooter Chrisna Bootha and their influential wing attacker Bongiwe Msomi due to injuries .the game ended 47-42 in favour of the queens.

Sindi Simutowe who had a solid performance scoring 25 baskets was voted diamond challenge player of the match and was given R 1000.ahead of tomorrow’s game Simutowe was confident that the queens will finish off the job.

“We had a very good game tonight, we played well and tomorrow will win again” she said

Detailed results

First quarter       12-10

Second quarter   12-11

Third quarter     14-9

Fourth quarter   9-12