Hosts Tanzania are due to open the Baseball5 African Championship on Monday (May 23) when they play Egypt in the first match.

Ten teams are registered to take part in the four-day event, initially divided into two groups.

Burkina Faso, Zambia and Uganda join Tanzania and Egypt in Group B at Dar es Salaam's National Stadium.

Kenya, Zimbabwe, South Africa, Tunisia and Ghana are in Group A.

Three days of pool play is set to be followed by quarter-finals, semi-finals and a final - plus matches for third and ninth places.

The event is set to conclude on Thursday (May 26).

Both finalists will qualify for the inaugural Baseball5 World Cup, which is due to be played later this year in Mexico.

Three teams are scheduled to earn World Cup berths at the Baseball5 Asia Cup in Malaysian capital Kuala Lumpur from August 17 to 19.

France and Lithuania were the first teams to book their places at the World Cup, doing so in February 2020.

Baseball5 is a pitcher-free discipline which requires only a rubber ball to play and no bat, so is designed to bring baseball to previously inaccessible areas.

Any playing surface can be used and hitting is done by hand.

It is on the programme for the Youth Olympic Games in Dakar in 2026 and has been championed by the World Baseball Softball Confederation as a youth- and urban-friendly discipline with the ability to be a vehicle for growing the sport.