- Tournament: Emerging Nations Trophy
- Dates: Nov 20th – Nov 30th 2025
- Host: Thailand
The Emerging Nations Trophy is an innovation from the ICC that allows countries to compete against teams they rarely meet in regional events.
The tournament has pitted teams ranked between 11th and 19th in the World, except Zimbabwe, to match up against themselves. This event allows countries like Namibia, Uganda and Tanzania from Africa to meet up with European powerhouses Scotland and the Netherlands.
Before this tournament, the only opportunity for these teams to meet was the Global T20 World Cup Qualifiers, but now there are more opportunities to keep learning from the best.
Uganda is ranked 18th in the World, and only Tanzania is ranked below it in 19th, but recent bias will favour the other East African nation that defeated Uganda twice at the Women’s T20 World Cup Qualifier in Namibia.
Uganda usually goes into tournaments with the pressure to deliver results or worried about their ranking in case they lose to lower-ranked opposition. However, in this case, Uganda has nothing to lose but everything to gain in Thailand.
The Victoria Pearls will meet with PNG, who are ranked 13th in the World, for the first time but they have played against the rest of the teams.
Namibia and Tanzania are familiar opponents and despite being in a stronger position, especially mentally.
Scotland gave the Victoria Pearls a lesson at the Global Qualifiers in Abu Dhabi in 2024, while the Netherlands and Uganda last met at the Global Qualifiers in 2018 in the Netherlands, a game that was won by Uganda.
UAE has been to Uganda for the Victoria Series, which was won by Uganda and Thailand defeated Uganda at the Global Qualifiers.
This situation puts Uganda in a position that it can exploit to check its ceiling; the Victoria Pearls can play without the fear of their usual problems. Apart from the odd game against Tanzania that could lose them points, the other six games give the team an opportunity to pick up points but also check how far they far from those ahead of them. This is a big opportunity for Deus Muhumuza and the technique team to look at their resources, especially some of the new players that were not in Abu Dhabi, such as Kevin Amuge, Naume Amongin, Teddy Oyella and Irene Mutonyi.
The team has struggled to pile on big totals from the Qualifiers and if they can go out and play with freedom against quality opposition at this tournament, then it will help build the confidence of the batting unit.
The bowling for Uganda has been tidy against familiar opponents, but they will be tested against quality batters in the tournament. The format of the tournament should offer lessons to Uganda without the pressure of worrying about losing and missing out on a qualification, the round robin format allows the teams to play against each other. The only carrot on the stick for all the teams is a passage to the next round for the top four teams at the end of the tournament.
The Victoria Pearls will kick off their tournament with a big clash against Scotland on November 20th and finish against Tanzania on November 30th.
