Patel’s matured inning and Irfan’s heroic bowling lead Uganda to their first win of the tourney, beating Tanzania by 64 runs. Uganda’s skipper Mukasa called the coin’s side right and opted to bat first. Mukasa himself and his opening partner Kayondo gave them a perfect start. They added 58 runs for the first wicket taking 29 balls. Mukasa and Kayondo scored 42 runs respectively. Mukasa took 33 balls to do so with 3 fours and 3 sixes where Kayondo took 19 balls with 5 fours and 2 sixes. Incoming batsman, Patel took out gem out of granite and played splendid inning of 66 runs off 45 balls with the help of 7 fours and 3 sixes. Later, handy cameo from Riazat Ali Shah (17) and Mohammed Irfan (09)* helped Uganda to propel their score to 181 runs with the lose of 4 wickets in inscribed 20 overs. For Tanzania, Ramaiya picked up 2 wickets where Rehmtullah and Mussa also chipped in with a wicket each.
In response, Mohammed Irfan and co proved to be very heavy for Tanzania’s batsmen. Tanzania’s batsmen batted out for full 20 overs but still found themselves 64 runs far from the target. Mohammed Irfan was unplayable on the day with mouth-watering figure of 4 overs, 1 maiden with 3 wickets expensing 9 runs. He victimised Patwa (00), Rehmtullah (08) and Jaboneke (00). Nakrani also managed to pick up 2 wickets followed by a wicket each for Mukasa and Ssenyondo. Zafar Khan added maximum 33 runs for Tanzania followed by 26 runs by Amarshi.
With this win, Uganda opens up their account in points table. Tanzania and Uganda still have equal two points after completion of their 2 matches. Top two sides among 4 participating nations will progress to main draw of Africa’s qualifier for World T20 qualifier 2019.
