Cranes on their knees

Out. Oman players celebrate a fall of a wicket against Cricket Cranes’ Roger Mukasa PHOTO BY AFP

What you need to know:

Cricket. Cricket Cranes face USA in Entebbe tomorrow, hoping to pick up pieces after unconvincing performances against Canada and Oman.

KAMPALA.

Pressure of being home, panic, penalties for wrong decisions and pain for defeat define the state of hosts Team Uganda at the ongoing ICC World Cricket League (WCL) Division Three tournament.

Clearly, the hosts are yet to recover from Tuesday’s opening loss to Canada. That is well evidenced in the players; fans and pundits’ eyes after Uganda yet again fell to Oman by six wickets on Day Three of the competition at the University Oval in Kyambogo on Friday. Following the recovery Day Two 66-run victory over Singapore in Entebbe on Wednesday, the soul searching resumed again as the Cricket Cranes surrendered to the 2016 ICC Twenty20 World Cup finalists.

“We didn’t turn up,” Uganda’s coach Steve Tikolo stated. “We played poor cricket and did not deserve to win. It is as simple as that.”

Knowing the intensity of pressure Uganda and Oman had before facing each other, the contest had to be decided by tactics bound by make or break decisions.

Did Uganda have to bat first on the tricky turning wicket after skipper Davis Karashani beat his opposite, veteran Sultan Ahmed to the toss?

“I would bat first and we thought anything above 210 runs would have us safe until that (bad) moment happened,” reasoned Karashani after Jatinder Singh’s match-winning 71-ball 58 helped Oman had chase Uganda’s 144 total with 138 balls to spare.

“Someone did something that might have cost in the batting line-up. We did not get enough runs to utilise our resources fully.” Karashani added.
“It was a team decision (to bat first) as I had discussed with the captain,” Tikolo said. “I would not say it was a wrong decision; we just did not play well.”

The Omanis believe this only played into their favour.
“We were planning to put them in the morning because there was a bit of dampness on the wicket. And we were surprised when they batted first which worked out well at the end,” Oman’s coach Duleep Mendis said.

“It was certainly a good toss to lose. It was a lovely wicket to bat on in the second innings,” Jatinder said after receiving his diadem from reserve umpire Buddhi Pradhan.
The 28-year-old Indian-born had neat 63-run partnership, which broke the camel’s back, with captain Sultan (22 off 44) for the third wicket. Naseem Khushi (14* off 12) and Ajay Lalcheta (19* off 10) sealed the job with no much fuss after 27 overs.
Interestingly, Uganda had set the tournament’s highest score at Kyambogo.

But it could have been better had Arthur Kyobe (0 off 2) and Mohammed Irfan (15 off 19) not been caught behind by Sultan off Bilal Khan (3/28) at 21-2 after 6.5 overs.

Hamu Kayondo (20 off 41) and Roger Mukasa (57 off 68) had reconstructed the innings with 46 runs off 46 balls for the third wicket. The latter survived run-outs more than twice before earning the nation’s first half-ton of the tournament.
But Uganda’s batting woes returned as they lost five wickets for a meager 34 runs with Aqib Ilyas taking control of matters with 2/5 and three maidens in a 7.5-over bowling spell.
The 14 extras outweighed seven Ugandan batsmen’s individual scores.