Uganda gears up for ICC Cricket League

By Alvin Bagaya

Uganda brought its quest to gain promotion to the ICC Cricket League Division 2 on home turf and opens it in a match against Canada at Lugogo Cricket Oval tomorrow.

In October 2016 the International Cricket Council (ICC) approved Uganda’s bid to host the tournament meaning Oman Singapore, Malaysia, Canada and USA will all be in Kampala battling for a place into Division 2 of Hong Kong, Namibia, Nepal, Kenya or Netherlands.

The tournament will be played at Lugogo Cricket Oval, Kyambogo Cricket Oval, and   Entebbe Cricket Oval.

The price of relegation will be a battle for promotion again against Denmark and Bermuda with two of promoted Guernsey, Italy, Qatar, Jersey, Cayman Islands, Vanuatu and Ghana from Division 5.

Ahead of the tournament, Uganda had its preps by routing Kenya 4-0, division challengers Canada went down to Zimbabwe A, Singapore lost to Kenya and beating Kenya Select, Oman beating Malaysia, Malaysia beating Kenya Select and Singapore losing to Kenya.

Coach Steve Tikolo is optimistic that the team led by skipper Davis Arinaitwe will have enough artillery to see it through to Division 2 come May 31.

The weeklong tournament will lay the foundation for the ICC Cricket World Cup in England.

Team squads

Canada Coach: Henry Osinde	Malaysia Coach: Bilal Asad	Oman Coach: Duleep Mendis	Singapore Coach: Trevor Chappell	Uganda Coach: Steve Tikolo	United States Coach: Pubudu Dassanayake
Nitish Kumar (c) Bhavindu Adhihetty Rizwan Cheema Navneet Dhaliwal Satsimranjit Dhindsa Nikhil Dutta Jimmy Hansra Mark Monfort Dhanuka Pathirana Cecil Pervez Junaid Siddiqui Durand Soraine Hamza Tariq Saad Bin Zafar	Ahmed Faiz (c) Anwar Arudin Syed Aziz Derek Duraisingam Khizar Hayat Muhammad Wafiq Irfan Fikri Makram Shukri Rahim Anwar Rahman Aminuddin Ramly Che Wan Razlan Shafiq Sharif (wk) Pavandeep Singh Virandeep Singh	Sultan Ahmed (c) Khawar Ali Munis Ansari Twinkal Bhandari Aqib Ilyas Bilal Khan Ajay Lalcheta Zeeshan Maqsood Sufyan Mehmood Mohammad Nadeem Muhammed Naseem Arun Poulose Noorul Riaz Jatinder Singh	Chetan Suryawanshi (c) Suresh Appusamy Parag Dahiwal Tim David Mulewa Dharmichand Anantha Krishna Amjad Mahboob Arjun Mutreja Anish Paraam Janak Prakash Rohan Rangarajan Chaminda Ruwan Kumar Selladore Kshitij Shinde	Davis Arinaitwe (c) Brian Masaba (vc) Otwani Arnold Shazad Kamal Hamu Kayondo Arthur Kyobe Deusdedit Muhumuza Roger Mukasa Frank Nsubuga Irfan Sahibzaba Jonathan Sebanja Laurence Sematimba Henry Ssenyondo Charles Waiswa	Steven Taylor (c) Timroy Allen Camilus Alexander Alex Amsterdam Fahad Babar Akeem Dodson Elmore Hutchinson Noshtush Kenjige Ibrahim Khaleel (wk) Ali Khan Mrunal Patel Timil Patel Jasdeep Singh Nicholas Standford