Friday, 17th September
Pearl of Africa T20 Series finals
@Entebbe Oval
Uganda 120/9 (20/20 ov)
Kenya 114/8 (20/20 ov)
*Uganda won by 6 runs
Uganda senior men’s national cricket team, Cricket Cranes on Friday beat their Kenyan counterparts by 6 runs to win the Pearl of Africa T20 Tri Series during the event’s finals at the lakeside Entebbe Oval.
Uganda who won the toss and elected to bat first returned 120 runs for 9 in 20 overs whilst Kenya managed 114 runs for 8 in 20 overs in their innings.
For Uganda, Saud Islam (26) and Simon Ssesazi (21) managed 35 in their opening partnership. It turned out to be a low scoring game with Ronak Patel (27) the other player to try to put up a good show.
For Kenya, Gurdeep Bhagat (44) was the main man but still the home side held on with Bilal Hassun managing to defend eight but two runs in the final over.
The tri series that was played by Uganda, Kenya and Nigeria had ICC ranking points, with all the participating teams having daunting tournaments coming up.
Cricket Cranes have two major tournaments coming up in the shape of ICC Men’s T20 World Cup Sub Regional Africa Qualifiers in Kigali, Rwanda from October 14th to 23rd as well as the ICC Cricket World Challenge League B scheduled at a venue and date yet to be communicated.
Nigeria is in preparation for the ICC qualifiers in November while Kenya will also be part of the qualifiers in Kigali.
Dafabet, Roketelkom, Pepsi (Nivana) and Uganda Airlines sponsored the Pearl of Africa T20 Tri Series.