Uganda Cricket Cranes coach Steve Tikolo drew a lot of positives from his side’s win over Kenya on Friday at Kyambogo.
Kenya won the toss of the first of the five game series and elected to bat. They set 147 all out and Uganda found no difficulty in chasing it down to win by 5 wickets in 37.5 Overs.
And Tikolo had a lot of praise for the team performance from his charges.
“I think it was a good team performance. Having to bowl first, I thought our bowlers stuck to the disciplines we have been talking about in training. I thought the simmers bowled well backed up by the spinners. It was a good performance in the field,” he told the media of the team performance after the game.
“And when it came to batting, I thought the batters took the responsibility of just knocking on the runs off slowly. It was a low score (147) but when you are chasing and you lose wickets quickly you get into trouble but I thought our batmen did a good job by not losing early wickets. Over all it was a good team performance.
“We are trying to put into practice what we have been doing in training and it’s paying off,” he added.
The Kenyan coach also said his side needs to take all chances as they come, pointing at a couple of missed opportunities that could be punishable when playing at a higher level of game.
“Obviously we missed a number of chances in the field. We dropped two chances while we were fielding and a run out, and I think we need to tighten up in that area.
“At the highest level you give a team a chance and they finish you off, so we need to tighten up in the fielding department and take whatever chances that come our way.”
Commenting on how the team has grown technically over time, Tikolo said: “We are right on course technically. We are using this series to find combinations we can finally settle on.
“Because the final team has not been named, we are using this series to try and get those combinations but technically the progress is I think very good.”
