Kenya out of U-19 Cricket World Cup race

Kenya’s hopes of participating  in next year’s World Under-19 ICC Cricket World Cup were quashed as Uganda virtually assured themselves of qualification, after thrashing  Ghana by a massive 330 runs on Friday.

Kenya still has one match against Uganda but the results will not matter. The only way is to thrash Uganda heavily, a near impossible fete.

Against Botswana, Kenya won the toss and elected to bat with the opening partnership of Aman Gandhi and Dennis Musyoka stepping on the crease, a pair that has remain consistent in the top order for Kenya.

Gandhi, 17, quickly made amends for his poor show in the last two games. His 62 runs that included 11 boundaries was his third highest score in the tournament before he was caught by Valentine Mbazo from a Boemo Kgosiemang bowling.

His Partner Musyoka could only manage 10 runs from 14 balls and was caught by Thabo Thupane from a Lawrence Ntshontsi bowling.

Thomas Ochieng continued his good run of form with his 63 runs from 59 balls while 17-year old  Ankit Hirani who was also named Man of the Match, registered the highest striking rate.

He had 59 runs off 31 balls faced. Kenya registered the highest winning margin of 281/8 against 83 runs from the Southern Africa outfit who were all out in 27 overs, eventually winning by 198 runs.

Kenya has now won 4 of the 5 matches played while Uganda remain the only unbeaten side in the qualifying series winning all of the 5 matches they played. Botswana finished last in the log having lost all five of its matches with each team remaining with a single match to play, the last of the qualifying series.

Despite finishing last in the series, Botswana’s head coach Joseph Angara, 45, held his head high and is delighted with his side as he hopes to rebuild the team in the coming qualifiers.

” Definitely it is disappointing to finish last but all in all it was a good experience and there is a lot to learn from this tournament.” told Angara, who was part of Kenyan team that participated in 2 World Cup tournaments in 1999 and 2003.

In other results, favorites and series leaders Uganda destroyed Ghana after an impressive 247 runs with 9 wickets lost,  against 93 runs all out in 29 overs for Ghana.

Uganda will join Namibia who got an automatic qualification to next years tournament after reaching the quarterfinals stage in the previous competition.