AfricaPress-Tanzania: TANZANIA Cricket Association (TCA) has issued a fixture for the first ever introduced 50-over Men’s Elite League that will involve only four teams.
The teams to compete are Kilimanjaro Aces, Serengeti Giants, Ngorongoro Titans and Tembo Warriors.
According to TCA’s development officer, Khalil Rehemtullah, Kilimanjaro Aces will face Ngorongoro Titans while Serengeti Giants will meet Tembo Warriors at the Dar es Salaam Gymkhana Club (DGC)on Sunday.
Initially, the league was expected to take off previous Sunday but was pushed back as DGC was busy hosting other activities. The teams will feature mainly national team players, who have been split into all four teams.
It also features players who excel at different teams with a view to analyse their performances for their possible inclusion in the national teams.
The league will be played on a weekly basis as players will compete in day-long 50 overs match for them to gain more experience.
The national team coach, Kenyan Steve Tikolo has said that the idea behind the introduced league was due to the fact that he needs to see local players be able to score highest score of runs so that to be able to compete against well drilled countries in the likes of Kenya, South Africa and Namibia during the ICC major tournaments.
“I have discovered that my players can not score many runs in 50-over matches,”
“In order to win, we need to be able at least scoring 250 overs and above rather than ending up in less than that,” said Tikolo.
He said Kenya, Namibia and other cricket powerful countries are able to score above 300 runs in a 50-over match, adding that the local players should also start focusing on that.
‘While I was coaching Uganda, they had the same problem of failing to score many runs in a single match of 50 overs,”
“I vigorously trained them on that and they eventually mastered well,” he said.
The next fixture will see Kilimanjaro Aces taking on Tembo Warriors as Ngorongoro Titans will pit against Serengeti Giants.
The staging of the tournament is part of preparations for next year’s ICC major Qualifying series, which were put off this year because of Coronavirus pandemic.
