232news
By Allieu Bockarie
Sierra Leone’s Female Patriot National Cricket team will today Monday 27th March engage the Nigeria senior female Cricket national team in the opening match of the tournament.
In all, five countries are set to battle in the second edition of the Women’s T20 Tournament. Among them are the host Nigeria, Sierra Leone, Rwanda, Ghana and Cameroon.
In the 1st edition, Rwanda won the champion trophy after defeating the host country Nigeria in the final match.
In the 3rd place battle, Sierra Leone defeated Ghana to lift the 3rd place trophy and bronze medals. In their meeting, Sierra Leone lost to Nigeria after a tight contest in the last tournament.
The Female Patriots will miss six of their senior players who took part in the first edition of the above tournament.
Amongst them are their captain Aminata Kamara, Nancy Square, Ann Marie Kamara who is at the Military training camp, Mabinty King, Mabinty Sankoh and Ramatu Kasim who is at the UN Police Peacekeeping training.
The six players were replaced by six U-19 players who recently represented Sierra Leone in the past ICC Women’s World Cup qualifying in Botswana.
The captain band was given to Fatmata Parkinson an all-rounder playing for Mid-West CC. They travel through Ghana where they passed the night and traveled to Nigeria on Saturday 25 March.
On Sunday, the team trained at the tournament Oval at the Tafawa Belewa Square in Lagos preparing to face Nigeria this morning.
In the afternoon, the defending champions will engage Ghana in the second match of the tournament. On Tuesday, Cameroon will engage Nigeria in the morning at the same venue and in the afternoon, Sierra Leone will take up the crease to battle with Ghana. In this match, Ghana would like to revenge on Sierra Leone while the Ladies Patriot will try to maintain their supremacy over Ghana.
The tournament will continue on Wednesday with the defending champions Rwanda battling with Sierra Leone in the morning and in the afternoon, Cameroon will host Ghana.
Thursday will be a resting day for all and they will be set to resume play on Friday but also a rest day for Sierra Leone. Before their departure, the team bade farewell to the Sports Ministry and assured the government that they will do their level best to win laurels for the country. To motivate the ladies and give them the zeal to put up a brave fight, the former Chairman of the association Beresford Bournes-Coker has promised to give half a million Leones to any player that will win the Woman of the Match award in any of the matches they will be playing. Below is the final list of female players for the tournament:
