The national women’s cricket team, the Victoria Pearls will be hoping for another international outing, when the Kwibuka tournament gets underway in June.
The Kwibuka cricket tournament has become a permanent fixture on the cricket calendar every year, where Uganda’s teams, both men and women, go to take on some of the other emerging cricket nations in the region.
However, this time, the Kwibuka cricket tournament, will come on the back of the International Women’s day cricket series that were held in March in Entebbe, before the Capricorn Eagles T20 series that ended recently in Namibia.
The Capricorn Eagles series was a six-game tournament between Uganda and Nambia, which concluded in a draw. Both Uganda and the Namibia women’s teams could not be separated, as they both won three games off each other, eventually sharing the trophy.
Perhaps, that was not the only unusual thing about the tournament. Uganda’s improved batting was another fact of note. Consy Aweko, a bowler on the team, could not hide her delight about the team’s continued improvement in that realm of the game.
“Previously, we found it hard to chase teams that had set reasonably big scorelines. In the final game against Namibia, they set 139 runs, but we managed to chase that and record a 140. That is why we levelled the series and shared the trophy,” Aweko said.
But even more significantly, Aweko noted a sign of better application from her batters against spin bowlers. That has for long been the Victoria Pearls’ shortcoming. Yet, the players showed more comfort facing spinners while in Namibia.
In fact, Aweko reserved special praise for her teammate, Esther Iloku for her wonderful batting innings throughout that campaign. For long, the Victoria Pearls have had to rely largely on the bowlers winning games. But with Iloku’s knocks, confidence is brewing in the team.