Curtains rolled down on the First Round of the ICC Cricket World Cup Challenge League B over the weekend after Matchday 8 was played with Uganda registering a decent win to complete the tourney unbeaten.
The eight-day competition played at Lugogo Cricket Oval in Kampala and the Lakeside Oval in Entebbe over 14 days had a total of 15 games, 9 played to the full, 3 decided on DLS and 3 washed out due to weather interruptions.
Cricket Cranes exhibited quite a decent performance throughout the tournament, a delight to the fans and the entire Ugandan cricket community.
Uganda’s outstanding display was a joy to watch. However, apart from the thrill the fans got at the grounds or wherever they caught the game, what does this performance really mean for the Cricket Cranes and Uganda at large?
Herein we give an overview of Team Uganda’s statistics to shed light on how Cricket Cranes stand after this first round.
General
From five games Uganda managed to collect 9 points with a 2.8736 Net Run Rate, topping the six-team table.
Uganda won 4 games, getting 2 points from each and only one point from the washout. A commendable start for the team, of course, the best there was to attain in this round.
With two more rounds to play, the standings give Uganda an advantage and some much-needed confidence to power through the next two rounds.
However, if the team relaxes with this impressive performance, it may fall into the trap of the other teams that are going to be working hard to redeem themselves in the next rounds. Basically, topping the table in the first round for Uganda is good but without good performances in the next rounds, it’s as good as nothing.
Batting
When it comes to runs, Cricket Cranes posted a total of 1187 runs in the five games. Quite a significant number of runs from the team compared to what we are accustomed to from them.
Apart from the game against Singapore, the team crossed the 200 mark in all the other games. The new skipper Riazat Ali Shah led the team and tournament charts with 276 runs, followed by Shrideep Mangela (173 runs), Dinesh Kumar Nakrani (169 runs), Robinson Obuya (141 runs) and Alpesh Ramjani (112 runs): all making admirable contributions to the team’s totals in the different games. Shah and Mangela getting centuries against Tanzania and Bahrain respectively.
While the numbers look good on paper, Uganda’s batting struggled particularly at the top order, falling cheaply before making a substantial impact on the score which left the heavy lifting to be done by the middle order. For the tail end batters, there was nothing to write about, all were dismissed for less than 30 runs in all games.
Nonetheless, Uganda won its games with its runs. However, the question is; will the way the team scored runs at home hold water in the second and third round?
Bowling
Uganda has always had comfort in its bowling strength. The bowlers always show up and do a good job overall and it was no different during the Challenge League B tournament.
In all games, it was the bowling unit that defended the set total to give Uganda a win; and against Singapore, the bowlers limited Singapore to 82 runs all out in 38.4 overs, which made light work for the batters who chased in 17.5 scoring 86/3 and winning by 7 wickets.
The most significant show of the bowling unit though was against Italy when all odds pointed to Uganda losing to a classy batting Italy side. However, left-arm spinner Henry Senyondo’s maiden over in the 30th changed the game a whole lot giving Uganda advantage and from that point on, it was a downhill task for the team that bowled out Italy for 230 in 49.3 overs. Alpesh Ramjani (5/69) and Ssenyondo (4/28) did the heavy lifting.
Generally, Uganda’s bowling is decent, but it can get better for even greater results.
Fielding statistics
Wicketkeeper Fred Achelam was decent behind the stumps with 3 wicket catches and 2 stumpings. Juma Miyagi, Dinesh Kumar Nakran and Raghav Dhawan who each had 3 wicket catches made it to the top 20 fielders list of the tournament; a reflection of Cricket Cranes’ fielding depth. Uganda’s fielding is okay, you may say, but it needs to be way better, cleaner and tighter. With so many leaked runs in some games, you wonder, if there was no run leak, wouldn’t its performance have been way better than we saw? It’s something we hope to see improved from the team as they head to Hong Kong China early 2025.
The Pathway
The ICC Cricket World Cup Challenge League B is played over 3 legs with each round the six teams playing against each other in a round robin format for points totalled up together to give the final standings of the tournament and the teams.
After the 3 legs, the 2 teams at the helm of the table with progress to the next round which is a World Cup qualifier.
For Uganda with the advantage in hand right now, they need atleast seven wins in the next two rounds to finish in the top two and progress; that is if everything remains constant.
The ICC Cricket World Cup Challenge League B is a pathway to attaining ODI status and progressing to the 2027 ICC Cricket World Cup qualifier.
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