Steve Tikolo looks to address Uganda’s batting deficiencies

When Steve Tikolo was named Cricket Cranes head coach last year, it was always going to be fascinating to see what kind of stamp a man who always came good with the bat would leave on an outfit whose opportunities have been cruelly limited by a string of batting disasters.

After countless sessions with players in the nets made Tikolo perhaps inevitably end up feeling didactic, the Kenyan coach got a chance to see if his whole approach had come to fruition. A quadrangular one-day series in the Kenyan capital involving Tikolo’s native country as well as Saudi Arabia and Qatar provided a litmus test at the tail-end of September.
During the series, there were various moments, some good, none great, some terrible. It was a such hodgepodge! A sense of energy and accomplishment filtered back into Cricket Cranes after vanquishing the old enemy, Kenya, but many observers were -- like Tikolo -- less inclined to take losses against Saudi Arabia and Qatar lightly or matter-of-factly. The defeat suffered at the hands of Saudi Arabia -- where a target of 241 proved a tall order -- particularly reinforced what has come to be known, sometimes with a note of derision, as Cricket Cranes’ underbelly.

On his return from the tour of Kenya, Tikolo assumed the mask of decorum. There were many positives to hold onto, he said. Launched by innocence and good intentions, it was only fitting that the experiment of playing Roger Mukasa in the No.4 slot promises well.

Mukasa’s fluent knock of 75 against Qatar showed that the No.4 slot is a perfect milieu for him. Not that he lacks the skill set to apply himself as an opening bat. Far from it. Mukasa has previously walked into the footsteps of New Age openers as witnessed in his destructive approach that takes the shine off the ball.

In asking Mukasa to bat at two-down, Tikolo is looking to eke out a responsible innings from the team’s best batsman. The 45-year-old coach has been in the batting trenches long enough to know that an outfit is likely to win if its second and third stands are good. This is why the one-drop and two-down berths in a batting order are of such prime importance. The two batsmen are in essence expected to steady a ship or capitalise on a good start. Both these tasks are no mean feats.

If in early, as is often the case with the Cricket Cranes, a No.3 or 4 can either counterattack or use a solid technique to see off the new ball.
Conversely, they are expected to score quickly if a weary bowling attack is trying to get to grips with a battered ball. Mukasa excelled at polar opposite roles in matches against Uganda and Kenya’s second string sides this past week in a quadrangular series on home soil.

Tikolo was naturally elated with Mukasa’s half centuries (60 against Uganda Select and 98 versus Kenya XI). The goal, Tikolo told your columnist, is to have Mukasa bat sensibly through to the second batting powerplay, which is usually taken in the 40th over to accelerate scoring rates.

Mukasa’s twin failures (including a golden duck) against formidable opposition in the shape of top Zimbabwean outfit Takashinga will doubtless be source of concern -- even worry. If Uganda is to keep the scoreboard ticking at next year’s ICC Division III World Cricket League, it will need its No.4 to step to the plate against not just weak but strong attacks.

Sense of entitlement bogs down ex Cranes players

The daring attack on Fufa House by a group of former Cranes players a fortnight ago has widely been dismissed by critics as an empty blast of sour breath.

The group, which, with George Ssimwogerere and Phillip Obwin standing in its corner, has in its ranks former Cranes skippers whose measure of ability and standing remains, regardless of what you think dear reader, undiminished, has promised not to shed its cloak-and-dagger tactics.

It certainly showed no signs of letting up on Wednesday when the bellicose talk of its fastidious if maverick leader Dan Walusimbi engineered a protest outside Fufa House as Cranes coach Milutin ‘Micho’ Sredojevic detailed his tuneup plans for the 2017 Africa Cup of Nations finals. Such actions have been seen by many less as a show of strength and more as radiating pious amateurishness.
This column could not agree with that school of thought more. Such an unapologetic embrace of disobedience must be condemned in no uncertain terms.

We should not, however, gloss over what has forced luminaries like Ssimwogerere and Obwin to hit new heights of bitterness. Their presence should if anything strike one as very telling. It is startlingly awful in every conceivable way.

What occasioned this raw display of emotions should be dealt with decisively. Pouring scorn on the former Cranes players does nothing more than exasperate them. This will summarily keep a vicious cycle intact. This, though, should not stop a mirror from being held up to them.

There appears to be a general consensus that ex athletes find life after sports unprepossessing because they aren’t equipped with life skills.
What doesn’t come out clearly is the fact that the system does a shabby job of grooming the players at the elementary stage. Sports personalities get preferential treatment in most schools.

They assume demigod status in the process, which births a morbid sense of entitlement. It’s this sense of entitlement that leads sports personalities to reckon -- wrongly -- that they can pretty much do without life skills.
If the red carpet is not always rolled out for athletes in school, who knows, maybe they can be taught to make a fist of whatever life throws their way.

To make a living from punditry or coaching, to mention but two, ex athletes have to appreciate the virtues of hard work and long-suffering. It is a brutal world out there, and a sense of entitlement does not help matters.

What we now know....

We now know that Uganda will have training camps in United Arab Emirates and Tunisia as it tunes up for the 2017 Africa Cup of Nations or Afcon finals. We know that The Cranes will play Ivory Coast in United Arab Emirates as it braces for its 2017 Afcon finals opener against Ghana.

We also know that playing against North African opposition in Tunisia will help Cranes players demystify facing similar opposition.

The Cranes face Egypt in their second 2017 Afcon finals group match. Cranes coach Milutin ‘Micho’ Sredojevic will hope that matches in Tunisia dismantle the mental block that has led many -- current Cranes players inclusive -- to contend that Ugandan outfits cannot face up to North African opposition.
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