Africa-Press – Tanzania. Tanzania has started its campaign for the progression to the next year’s World Cup finals with a bhang, after beating Nigeria and Kenya in yesterday’s opening matches of the 4-Nation ICC men’s T20 World Cup Africa Regional finals taking place in Kigali, Rwanda.
In a late match on Wednesday, Tanzania beat Kenya by 39 runs, after the latter failed to chase the target of 188 runs.
Earlier in the morning, the national cricket team skipper Abhik Patwa was instrumental in his team’s six- wicket victory over Nigeria in Kigali, Rwanda on Wednesday.
Patwa played well in his role as the captain by scoring 36 runs to lead his side to an emphatic first match victory.
Patwa scored the runs from 24 balls before he was bowled out in the 10.3 over to leave the assignment to others, who did not let him down.
Ivan Seleman, who snatched the ‘Man of the Match’ title twice consecutively during the Sub-Regional Qualifiers held two weeks ago at the same venue, hit 21 runs from 15 balls.
Nigeria opted to bat first to set up the target of 114, dropping all of their wickets.
Tanzania then took well it’s chances in it’s inning, scoring 117/4 to set up a six-wicket victory.
Those who did not bat were Riziki Kiseto, Salum Jumbe, Ally Kimote, Nassib Mapunda and Sunjay Kumar. Nigeria earned most of their runs through Ashmit Shreshtav who netted 26.
The fixture shows that Tanzania was late in the evening yesterday expected to take on Kenya, who are regarded as among the title favourites.
However, Tanzania, coached by a Kenyan Steve Tikolo, has chances to outclass their fellow East African brothers in their bid to progress to the next year’s World Cup fixtures scheduled in Australia.
Kenya and Nigeria have progressed directly to the ongoing final by virtue of their appearance in the previous T20 World Cup Global Qualifiers held two years ago.
Tanzania and Uganda have also progressed to today’s final after claiming their spots from the two Africa sub-regional qualifiers A & B held in Rwanda over the past 3 weeks.
“ We are in good shape to take the two sides and move forward”, said the team’s captain, Abhik Patwa.
Patwa, one of the experienced players in the team, however, said the prowess of their opponents, but stays optimistic that they will break the ice.
The fixture further shows that Tanzania will today play Uganda before replaying Kenya in the afternoon.
The final fixture will see Tanzania re-playing Uganda before re-playing Nigeria Tanzania is familiar with Kenya and Uganda, having, having an experience of encountering the two sides in various ICC World Cup qualifiers as well as Africa Division 1 &2 tournaments.
Kenya should be wary of Tikolo’s tactics and approach because of his international experience that includes representation of his country in five World Cup events.
The finals take place at the Gahanga International Cricket Stadium and IPRC Kigali ground.
The four teams in the competition play each other in a double round-robin group stage format to determine the winner of the tournament, who will advance towards 2022 Global qualifiers.
The finals are part of the progression to the T-20 in pursuit for the T-20 World Cup finals to be played next year.
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