Match Day 7: U-19 World Cup Qualifiers
Game 5: Uganda U-19 v Sierra Leone U-19
Match Result: Uganda 137 all out
Sierra Leone 138/9
Sierra Leone won by 1 wicket.
The Baby Cricket Cranes ended their World Cup qualifiers campaign on a low loss by one wicket to Sierra Leone.
The loss will sink in on the final day because if Sierra Leone follows up this win with another against Tanzania that would relegate Uganda to Div 2 in Africa.
Sierra Leone won the toss and elected to bowl 1st but the opening pair of Ronald Omara (18) and Gerald Olipa (26) put on 40 the breakthrough for Sierra Leone triggered a mini collapse and only Captain Fahad Mutagana (48) who offered any resistance to help Uganda put on 137 in 49.3 overs with 20 runs coming in form of extras.
In the response, Sierra Leone openers put on 43 together but once the breakthrough came the rest of the batting lineup never offered any resistance until the tail wagged for a partnership of 21 that took the game up to the last over.
Sierra Leone held their nerve in the final over to win by 1 wicket and complete a famous victory their 1st against Uganda in any competition.
Uganda came into the competition as the defending champions and one of the favourites but is now on the brink of relegation if Tanzania doesn’t do them any favours when they take on Sierra Leone on the final day of the tournament tomorrow.
While they managed to score at least over 100 runs in this particular match they batted so slow that if you remove the 20 runs in extras the Ugandan batters only managed just over 110 runs just about two runs every over.
The decision to leave out Ali Balidawa and Tandia Abdul Aziz meant that they were short of slow bowlers against a side that has struggled to play spin.
The lessons are plenty for Uganda on a qualification campaign they will want to quickly forget.
