ICC World Cricket: Uganda in trouble

Jan 22, 2015

Three defeats in three games. That is how Uganda’s ICC World Cricket League Division 2 campaign, which started with a morale-boosting win over highflying Nepal, has collapsed to the brink of relegation back to Division 3.

By Charles Mutebi

ICC World Cricket

League Results

Canada 293/6 Uganda 182/10

(Canada win by 111 runs)

Kenya 212/9 Netherlands 217/5

(Netherlands win by five wickets)

Namibia 142/10 Nepal 146/7

(Nepal win by three wickets)

Three defeats in three games. That is how Uganda’s ICC World Cricket League Division 2 campaign, which started with a morale-boosting win over highflying Nepal, has collapsed to the brink of relegation back to Division 3.

Going into tomorrow’s final round-robin matches, the Cricket Cranes find themselves in need of a huge win over the Netherlands and at least one favourable outcome from the other two games to survive the drop.

In other words, it’s a long shot for Uganda, who slumped to an unexpected 111-run loss to Canada yesterday that suggested the Cranes have lost all the grit and self-belief they displayed in the first two games of the tournament, even though the second one was a four-wicket loss to Namibia.

How rudely things have changed for Frank Nsubuga’s men, who must be wondering how they have failed to add to their opening-day win over Nepal, something that has left them rooted to the bottom of the standings with the worst net run rate. Uganda’s net run rate (NRR) is a terrible -0.9887.

Kenya, who are second last with on one win like the Cranes, have a NRR of -0.622 while Canada and the Netherlands, who have two wins apiece, have NRR of -0.197 and -0.622 respectively.

Of course if the Cranes lose tomorrow’s contest against the Netherlands then the NRR won’t matter to Uganda.