Cricket Cranes assistant coach Jackson Ogwang maintains Uganda will miss the duo of Juma Miyaji and Cosmos Kyewuta, but he insists they have enough quality to compete at the Continental Cup T20-Africa tournament that bowls off on Friday.
Miyaji failed to make the squad after failing to recover on time from a back injury he suffered a month ago while Kyewuta is in South Africa for trials. The two are Cricket Cranes opening bowlers, and have been some of the top performers in the team, but while Ogwang knows their quality will be missed, he says the team has a fallback.
“Of course on a wicket like Gymkhana, we’ll definitely miss our quickies, but because of the squad depth, we have back up. But we’ll miss them a lot. We can only hope we have them back strong in the next tournament.”
The duo’s absence made way for Siraje Nsubuga and Robinson Obuya. The youngsters will be making their national team debuts if given an opportunity, but Riazat Ali Shah and Bilal Hassun will open the bowling for Uganda.
The Cricket Cranes will play Botswana in their opening game tomorrow in the afternoon.
Like Rwanda and Kenya, Uganda will be using this tourney as a way of gauging their progress as they await the World Cup Regional Qualifiers due in November in Namibia.
Uganda, Rwanda and Kenya will be joined by Tanzania, Zimbabwe and Namibia in November to fight for the two slots that will be available in that World Cup Qualifier.
