Queens maintain sixth position

Malawi National Netball Team coach Peace Chawinga-Kaluwa has described the latest Netball World rankings that has seen the Queens maintaining sixth place as a wake-up call to be active.

World Netball yesterday released the rankings update which include results of the Spar Diamond Challenge in November in South Africa.

The Queens did not take part because Netball Association of Malawi could not raise the required K80 million.

As such, they have not been active since August when they competed in the Netball World Cup qualifiers in South Africa, where they finished second after going down 60-44 to the hosts.

Although the latest update has seen no major changes in the top-10 bracket, Chawinga-Kaluwa said rating points gained will help some some teams improve on the rankings.

She said: “All the teams that took part in the Spar Challenge and the other recent games have gained some rating points. So, we should not sit on our laurels and expect to improve on rankings.

“We should always strive to be active if we are to achieve our goal of penetrating into the top-four rankings. The more games we play, the more chances of improving our ranking.”

Australia remains first followed by New Zealand, England, Jamaica and South Africa, who were unbeaten in the Spar Diamond Challenge.

The rankings also show that Scotland and Zimbabwe also retained their respective 10th and 13th positions following

their 41–41 draw at the tournament. Both lost to South Africa.

Other teams that added more matches to their tallies included Botswana, Fiji, Ireland,

Malaysia and Singapore, who all played in the Asia Nations Cup from December 4 to 10 in Singapore.

Botswana, who had the lowest ranking going into the event at 31, confidently overcame Fiji in the final to be crowned 2022 champions. This result pushed them seven places up to 24th.

NAM vice-president Chimwemwe Bakali yesterday said it is their wish to ensure that the Queens take part in every available event but lack of finances is a big challenge.

He said: “Whenever an opportunity for matches comes, we always want to participate because we know the consequences of being idle.

“However, financial constraints let us down. It is about time all stakeholders, not only the government and official sponsors FDH Bank, join hands to help the Queens.”