Kenya beat Rwanda to set up crunch tie with Uganda
Cricket
By
Washington Onyango
| Jun 18, 2023
Kenya won its third match against Rwanda by seven wickets with 16 balls to spare at the ongoing Continent Cup T20 Africa Cricket tournament at the Nairobi Gymkhana Club on Saturday.
Rwanda won the toss and decided to bat first, they amassed 99 runs for the loss of 10 wickets in 20 overs.
Kenya had 100 runs, losing three wickets in 17.2 overs.
Once again, Lucas Oluoch emerged the man of the match for the second time in the tournament after notching three wickets in 18 runs in the four overs.
"Positivity helped us to bounce back after losing to Botswana on Thursday," team captain Rakep Patel told Standard Sports.
"The boys came up, bowled really well and comfortably restricted Rwanda to 99 runs."
While giving hint to their low scoring, Rakep blamed the pitch for playing slow which he said is contributed by the many games that have been in the tournament.
However, Rakep praised the six Kenyan bowlers who he said are performing impressively in the contest among them Viraj Patel, Vishil Patel and Oluoch.
On Viraj's meteoric rise in the national team which he joined last year, Rakep said: "Viraj is a crucial player for us right now. He is now a senior left hand bowler even though he just came recently to the squad. He's growing with confidence, he knows his role well and he is facing his challenges with brevity."
Kenya is poised to meet Uganda today in a crucial third matchup and Rakep says they are going to stick to the basics of the game.
"We are going to try to be consistent, we are going to restrict them to under 140 which is a manageable score," Rakep highlighted.
Rwanda captain Clinton Rubagumya termed their loss to Kenya as a training opportunity ahead of their ICC World Cup Qualifiers in November.
"We don't focus on the loss, we are using the tournament to know which areas to rectify and our batting department is one of them," said Rubagumya.
"So far we have two games left, if we can get to 140 mark in both, then we are good to go.
"When we came to this tournament we were the lowest ranked side but already we pulled a victory by beating Botswana that is ranked 18 places above us."