The Malawi senior men’s cricket national team is expected to host France, Bahrain and Kenya in a four-nation international competition in Blantyre in June.
Cricket Malawi operations director Arjun Menon confirmed the development on Wednesday, saying they believe the three higher-ranked national teams would give Malawi a good test as they prepare for the 2026 International Cricket Council (ICC) Men’s T20 World Cup Africa Division 1 Qualifiers in September.
The official ICC T20 rankings indicate that Malawi men’s team is 54th while Bahrain is 27th, Kenya 33rd and France 48th.
In 2024, the Malawi senior men’s cricket team came second in the ICC World T20 Africa Division Two Group A Qualifier to progress to this year’s ICC World T20 Africa Division One Qualifiers for the first time.
“Cricket Malawi president Vivek Ganesan met and discussed with high-ranking officials of the three federations at the recent ICC Conference. Currently, we are finalising our negotiations on logistics,” said Menon, who is also the senior men’s national team coach.
He said the international event will not only help to boost the national team’s ranking as it will also have a great impact on
Malawi’s World Cup Africa Division One Qualifiers’ considering that they will be testing their strength against a variety of world class teams.
“All along, we have been only playing against African teams but the upcoming event will help us to gauge our strength against overseas teams. This will give us a perspective of what to expect as we head to the World Cup Qualifiers this September,” he said.
The four-nation tourney comes after Malawi Cricket last weekend dominated the Malawi Sport Award at Sunbird Nkopola following its winning of three accolades, namely, Sports Association of the Year, the National Team of the Year through the Malawi Women’s U19 cricket national team and the Coach of the Year through the U19 women team’s coach Gershom Mtambalika.
Mtambalika, who doubles as the senior men team’s player, described the upcoming four-nation tourney as a big motivation.
