Author: SULEIMAN JONGO
AfricaPress-Tanzania: ARSHAAN Jasani scored a half century as Kilimanjaro Aces won the opening match of TCA Super League 2020, after beating Ngorongoro Titans by one wicket at University of Dar es Salaam (UDSM) ground.
Ngongoro Titans won the toss and elected to bat first to score 145 runs, losing all ten wickets in 49.1 overs of their inning.
Arsalaan Premji took 32 runs as Aahil Jasani scored 24 others in their inning and could not utilise well their experienced players in the likes of Abhik Patwa and Riziki Kiseto to score more runs to give a hard time for their opponents to make a chase.
But Aces made a successful chase to score 146 runs, dropping nine wickets to win the match at just 34.5 overs.
“It was a tough match though we managed to win,” said batsman Kassim Nassoro, who scored 25 runs from 38 balls he faced.
“Our opponents had also a good squad with experienced players, but we managed to do our best in the fielding for them to drop more wickets,” said Nassoro.
The 50-over men’s elite league has been organised by the Tanzania Cricket Association (TCA), mostly involving national players split into four participating 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 idea is to enable the players have a big experience in scoring as many runs as possible in the 50-over day long matches.
The teams competing are Kilimanjaro Aces, Serengeti Giants, Ngorongoro Titans and Tembo Warriors.
Initially, the league that will be played during holidays and weekends was expected to take off the previous Sunday but was pushed back as DGC was busy hosting other activities.
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 as to be able to compete against well drilled countries in the likes of Kenya, South Africa and Namibia during the ICC major tournaments.
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 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
