Tanzania Daily News (Dar es Salaam)
Japheth Kazenga
17 December 2011
Tanzania senior national women cricket team commanded a hard fought six-run win over Namibia in the opening match of the inaugural ICC Africa Women T20 Championship played in Entebbe, Uganda on Friday.
The two sides were meeting for the first time in a competitive event at the continental level and the Tanzanian ladies never hesitated to fully exploit their chances when it matter the most.
Namibia won the toss and put Tanzania in to bat first, in which the latter went on to record 94 runs for four wickets in the allotted 20 overs, thanks largely to impressive batting performance by the top order batters.
Experienced skipper, Monica Paschal, led by example during Tanzania’s innings after nailing 28 runs off 56 balls, which included one boundary, as fellow veteran, Hadija Nassibu, added 15 runs off 27 balls.
Opener, Asha Daudi, also chipped in with a crucial contribution of 11 runs off 34 balls, with the team further enjoying a rare show of tenacity by low order batter, Hawa Mgoa, who came in during the closing stages and finished the innings with an unbeaten four runs off three balls.
Namibia wicket takers were Irene Van Zyl, Sune Wittman, Anna Mart Adriaanse and Anneri Van Schoor with a wicket each and the quartet’s effort to limit Tanzania to a low score eventually proved futile.
In response, Namibia chased their opponents’ score zealously but could only record 88 runs for the loss of six wickets in the allotted 20 overs to eventually succumb to the defeat. Carmin Liebenberg (39 runs off 64 balls) was the team’s top scorer of runs, followed by Anneri (19 runs off 32 balls) and Sune (16 runs off seven balls).
Tanzania’s most trusted pacer, Hawa, unleashed her bowling virtuosity to finish her spell with a figure of 2/10 in four overs, emerging medium pace bowlers, Mwanaidi Amy (2/19 in four overs) and Esther Wallace, who had one wicket, did their best to help pin Namibia batters down and ultimately prevented them from realizing the chase.
In other matches also played the same day, hosts Uganda beat Sierra Leone by 122 runs at Lugogo venue in Kampala while Kenya thrashed Nigeria by 10 wickets.
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