Africa-Press – Tanzania. THE Tanzania Cricket youth team has continued to dictate terms in the ICC Under-19 World Cup Africa Qualifiers after beating Nigeria by nine wickets at Gahanga oval in Rwanda, on Sunday.
This victory is the third victory for Tanzania after beating the tournament’s host Rwanda by four wickets in the first encounter and Namibia by 48 runs in their second game.
Tanzania has hauled six points at the helm followed by Namibia and Rwanda with two points each. Uganda are placed fourth while Nigeria are glued at the bottom.
Therefore, Tanzania has secured six key points, setting a record of being the only team with no taste of defeat in three games.
At Gahanga oval, the 50 over encounter began with Nigeria winning the toss and electing to bat. They did their best and bagged 39 runs in 16 overs.
The Nigerian boys with a superb performance yesterday included Chiemelie Udekwe, who grabbed a wicket and logged seven runs in six balls on their side; Paul Pam scored nine runs from ten balls, and Isaac Onyemgba scored seven runs from 22 balls.
Responding to the score, Tanzania successfully chased the target, where they lodged 42 runs in 12.1 overs of the 50 allocated overs.
Given Yalinde Nkanya’s performance was motivating as he claimed six wickets that enabled him to secure the man of the match award.
Other than Nkanya’s performance, Johnson Nyambo claimed two wickets while Karim Mnyankindi claimed a wicket.
On the batsman side, Gokul Das did an excellent job, as he registered 17 runs from 44 balls, Abdallah Jabir scored 12 runs from 16 balls and skipper Dhrumit Mehta scoring ten runs in 14 balls.
Through these competitions, Tanzania has witnessed multiple talent picking players of the match award. One player who picked the MVP award was a fourteen-year-old boy Laksh Bakrania who had a brilliant performance and claimed five wickets; Gokul Das picked the player of the match when Tanzania beat Rwanda.
He scored 48 runs from 83 balls. Other than the MVP award players, some Tanzanian players astonished cricket lovers in the encounter against Namibia; Dhrumit Mehta scored 69 runs from 116 balls, and Abdulrahman Akida bagged 56 runs from 82 balls.
It was indeed a classy game as they held the best show in hauling runs after each scoring a half-century. Through the boys, their performances have shown a bright future for Tanzania on the cricket world map.
The Tanzania Cricket Association (TCA) has called on stakeholders to join hands with Reliance Insurance and Azania Bank in supporting cricket development in Tanzania.
As they believe with similar investment placed in cricket as in other sports like soccer and boxing, the world will witness a mega change.
