By Bockarrie Allieu in Abuja
232News
The Sierra Leone U-19 National team will today Monday battle with Botswana at the Abuja pitch 2 in their second match. The young Patriots of Sierra Leone were to play Botswana in the first match on Friday but because of the late arrival of Botswana the organizers rescheduled the fixtures to let Sierra Leone’s First match now be played on Saturday 1st October 2022 the second day against Rwanda. On the opening day the Host country Nigeria defeated Rwanda by 10 wickets. The Rwandans won the toss and opted to bat first. They were all out for 41 runs in 23 overs. The host country Nigeria replied with 42 runs not out in 8 overs.
At pitch 1 in the opening match of group A Kenya humiliated Malawi by scoring 346 runs loss of 8 wickets in 45 overs with a run rate of 7.68 runs. The Kenyan youth team batted first and score 346 runs loss of 8 wickets in 45 overs. At the end of the innings the Malawians were looking for 287 runs to win the match by Duckworth Lewis method but they only manage to 31 runs loss of 5 wickets in 14.5 overs with a run rate of 2.08 runs.
On Saturday Rwanda hosted Sierra Leone at pitch 2 while Kenya hosted Ghana at pitch 2. But the results of the two matches were not known until press time. On Sunday Botswana engaged the host country Nigeria at pitch 1 while Malawi engaged Mozambique at pitch 2. In today’s match the host country also will play their second group stage match against Botswana at pitch1. The following Tuesday, Sierra Leone will engage the host country Nigeria in their last group stage match in a West Africa derby match at pitch 1 while Rwanda will battle with Botswana at pitch 2. The last group stage battles will end on Wednesday with Ghana hosting Malawi at pitch 1 while Mozambique will face Kenya at pitch 2 in Abuja. The participating teams will rest on Thursday with the leaders and the runner-up in the two groups set to battle in the semi-final stage on Friday. In the first semi-final match on Friday the winner in group A will battle with the runner-up in group B at pitch 1 and at pitch 2 the group B leaders will face the runner-up in group A. The tournament will end on Saturday with the winners in the semi-final matches battling at pitch 1 for the first (champions) and second position in the tournament. At pitch 2 the losers in the semi-final matches will battle for the third place position in the tournament. The visiting teams will depart back to their respective countries on Sunday.
