Uganda makes cricket history with win over Zimbabwe

ICC T20 Africa World Cup Qualifier

Zimbabwe 136/7 Uganda 138/5 (Uganda win by five wickets)

Monday: Uganda v Nigeria

Riazat Shah delivered a man-of-match display as the Cricket Cranes rewrote the record books with Uganda’s first-ever win over a test nation, defeating Zimbabwe by five wickets at the ICC T20 Africa World Cup Qualifier.

Just as importantly, the win left Uganda three more victories away from qualification for a first-ever senior ICC World Cup. 

Shah drove Uganda’s innings to victory, scoring a team-best 42 off 28 balls, departing the field with four runs left in the chase after his attempted match-winning boundary was caught by Tadiwanashe Marumani at deep mid-wicket.

By then the damage was done, and the fact was confirmed after Zimbabwe captain Sikandar Raza’s opening ball of the final over ended in 4 byes. Raza scored a game-best 48 but he was left to rue the “fielding mistakes” that characterized a performance he described as another exercise in self-destruction by Zimbabwe.

“We keep finding methods to fail,” is how Raza put it.

His counterpart Brian Masaba was speechless after the game he described as the biggest in the history of Ugandan cricket.

“It is massive,” he said. “Not just in the context of the tournament, but in the context of the 40 million Ugandans back home.”

Masaba won the toss and put in Zimbabwe to bat, a decision that was vindicated by Uganda’s tight defensive work.

“They out-fielded us today,” Raza hailed Uganda. “We should have scored about 150 in these conditions to win.”

Alpesh Ramjani (40 off 26) got Uganda back on track after the quick dismissals of Simon Ssesazi (one run) and Ronak Patel (eight runs). Roger Mukasa scored 23 while Dinesh Nakrani added 14.

Nakrani also finished with match-best figures of 3/14, with Henry Ssenyondo taking 2/25 and Shah adding 1/29.

Tomorrow, Uganda face Nigeria as huge favourites to make more progress towards a dream now becoming reality.