Cricket was started in the country by expatriates from South Africa and the
Indian subcontinent. Botswana was elected to the ICC as an affiliate member in 2001, In March 2004, they won the African affiliates qualifying tournament for the
2005 ICC Trophy, qualifying them for the next stage of qualification, the Africa Cricket Association Championships. They beat
Nigeria and Tanzania in that tournament in Zambia in August, finishing fourth, thus missing out on qualification for their first
ICC Trophy. They were rewarded for their performance in this tournament by being promoted to associate membership of the ICC in 2005. This qualified them for
Division Five of the World Cricket League. In October 2008, Botswana took part in Division Two of the
African region of the World Cricket League, finishing unbeaten and winning the tournament. This victory promoted them to Division One of the Africa Region. In August 2009, Botswana travelled to Singapore to participate in
Division Six of the World Cricket League. Despite being competitive in most of their games, Botswana won only one of five group matches and finished fifth after beating
Norway in a positional playoff. In May 2011, Botswana hosted the ICC World Cricket League Division Seven with a young squad and performed admirably well, winning three league stage matches against Norway, Japan and Germany but losing out to eventual champions Kuwait, 2nd placed Nigeria and finally Germany in the placing match. The match versus Nigeria in the league stages was to decide which of the 2 nations would progress to the ICC World Cricket League Division Six to be held in Malaysia in September 2011 and by losing that match, Botswana failed to progress and will remain in Division Seven till the next instalment of the ICC WCL. In April 2013, Botswana were given hosting rights again for the ICC World Cricket League Division 7 in their second attempt in trying to get promoted out of Division 7 after halting the relegation slide in the last edition. Beating Ghana in the first match, Botswana lost their second match in a competitive encounter against Vanuatu by 23 runs. Botswana then lost third next match heavily to eventual WCL Div 7 winners and arch rivals Nigeria. Botswana tried in vain to get back into contention for promotion but after a tied match against Germany, all hopes were dashed and the best they could hope for was a third-place finish. This was achieved by beating Fiji in the last group match and then beating them again in the third-place playoff earning Botswana a third place, finishing behind Vanuatu and Nigeria who were both promoted to Division 6 of the WCL. With the ICC's decision to eliminate the ICC World Cricket League Divisions 7 and 8, Botswana will now have to qualify through regional tournaments to make it into the ICC World Cricket League Division 6, which will now be the entry point for the World Cricket League.
2018–present In April 2018, the ICC decided to grant full
Twenty20 International (T20I) status to all its members. Therefore, all
Twenty20 matches played between Botswana and other
ICC members since 1 January 2019 have the full T20I status. Botswana’s first T20I match was against
Uganda on 20 May 2019, after finishing first in the
Southern sub-region qualification group, advancing to the Regional Final of the
2018–19 ICC World Twenty20 Africa Qualifier tournament. ==Grounds==