Cricket Cranes flex muscles in South Africa as titans await

Uganda’s Tour of South Africa

Lions 109 Uganda 113/5

(Uganda win by five wickets)
 

Riazat Shah and the Cricket Cranes left for South Africa hoping for serious examination from the Lions and Titans.

“Titans and Lions will give us a tough test, the kind we need before Zimbabwe,” said Ugandan captain Shah last week.

Shah’s expectations were hugely disappointed in Uganda’s first outing as it turned out to be anything but a tough engagement. The Cricket Cranes defeated the Lions XI Saturday at the Tuks Cricket Oval by five wickets, with Juma Miyagi picking a game-best 3/23 and two wickets apiece being contributed by Cosmas Kyewuta and Dinesh Nakrani.

Uganda’s dominant performance will have alerted the Titans, whom they face today, and it will be interesting how the home side respond. The expectation for Abhay Sharma’s Cricket Cranes should be a Titans outfit that will pose more questions than the Lions did.

Uganda are preparing for World Cup qualifiers in Zimbabwe between September 19 and October 5, where dangerous opposition, a la Zimbabwe and Namibia, stand in the way of the Cricket Cranes' quest for a top two finish.

For Uganda, the ongoing buildup matches are important gauges of preparedness, so Sharma would have taken the Lions engagement very seriously. He would be eager to establish whether the outcome was more a reflection of his side's proficiency rather than the opponents’ shortcomings.

The answer should be the former because any real tournament buildup should endeavour as humanly possible to simulate the conditions of the actual event, with, for instance, the strength of trial games mimicking what is to come in the hour of battle. Anything short of that and you are signing up for a rude awakening.

The Cricket Cranes invested yesterday in skills development at the University of Pretoria, with the batters spending time in the nets and bowlers in the gym.