Former Proteas all-rounder Justin Kemp serving as Western Province bowling coach in 2024.

• South Africa’s Justin Kemp has been named as Namibia’s director of cricket.
• The former Proteas all-rounder has held several coaching positions, recently serving as Western Province bowling coach for two years.
• Kemp is honoured to take on the new role, aiming to take Namibia cricket to “greater heights”.
  
• For any news and fixtures of the Women’s T20 World Cup, visit our special site.

Former Proteas all-rounder Justin Kemp has been appointed as Namibia’s Director of Cricket, hoping to take the neighbouring nation to “greater heights”.

Namibia Cricket CEO Johan Muller created the new role to with Kemp serving it.

Kemp, 48, will be heavily involved in helping co-host next year’s 50-over Cricket World Cup alongside South Africa and Zimbabwe.

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Kemp was Western Province assistant coach in 2024 and a contender for the head coach role, but after Rory Kleinveldt’s appointment, he departed to join the Eagles as bowling coach last August.

Kemp, who played four Tests, 85 ODIs and eight T20Is for the Proteas, also has held coaching stints in the Pakistan Super League and Bangladesh Premier League.

As Director of Cricket, Kemp will oversee the strategic direction of cricket operations across Cricket Namibia, including the national teams, high-performance programmes, talent identification structures, coach development pathways and growth of the game.

“It’s a huge honour for me to be part of Cricket Namibia and hopefully, take this country forward to greater heights,” said Kemp in a press conference in Windhoek.

“What we’ve achieved over the last four or five years is quite something with what we have.

“I think a lot of credit must go to Johan and his team and what they’ve created, especially here at this ground and from where we’ve come from.”

Under current Eagles coach Craig Williams, Kemp has been involved in the ongoing ICC Cricket World Cup League 2, which features Namibia alongside the United States, Scotland, and the Netherlands.

Namibia will co-host the next year’s ICC Men’s Cricket World Cup alongside South Africa and Zimbabwe, with the 50-over tournament scheduled to take place from 4 October to 21 November 2027.

This will be the first senior World Cup hosted in Namibia.

However, the Eagles face an uphill task to qualify for next year’s World Cup after not being given the luxury of an automatic spot by hosting.

Namibia currently sit seventh in the League 2 standings, outside a top four spot, which would move them to the Cricket World Cup Qualifier.

There is a path through a League 2 play-off should they not finish in the top half of the eight-team competition.

Kemp is focused on establishing Namibia as a more formidable force in global cricket.

“For me, it’s really a huge honour and ambition comes to mind when I’m thinking about this job and trying to take Namibia forward,” he said.

“We’ll have to wait and see, but [the plan is] certainly to try to become a real force in world cricket, that’s really where we’re at and what we’re trying to achieve.”

Namibia face a busy home schedule, starting with three ODIs against Hong Kong from Saturday in Windhoek.

They will then host a T20I tri-series featuring Nigeria and Hong Kong from 13-23 June, before wrapping up with three ODIs against Nigeria.