By Bockarie Allieu
FREETOWN, Nov. 9 (SALONE TIMES) – The Sierra Leone Senior Male National Cricket team the Patriot took part in the ICC Men’s T20 W/C Qualifying in Kigali Rwanda. Eleven countries divided into two groups took part in the above qualifying. Sierra Leone termed as the underdogs except for Cameroun fell in group B with four other countries of which one country was to qualify to the Africa Regional final stage. Sierra Leone lost their first two matches played to Botswana and Tanzania. They won their 3rd match by 5 wickets against Mozambique. Sierra Leone played their last group stage match against Cameroun on Sunday but the results were not available before going to press. Sierra Leone went to the tournament not among the ICC graded countries as it has taken over two years without taking part in any ICC organized T20 competitions. But before going to Rwanda they went to Nigeria to engage their senior male team in six T20 series matches. Among the six series matches they won the first match and lost the last five matches. In Rwanda though they failed to qualify winning against Mozambique with a possible win against Cameroun in their last match will let ICC grade them among the top performing countries. In another development according to the ICC score Sierra Leone has been promoted to category B for their success in growing the game which includes organizing local competitions, modified Cricket, umpiring, scoring, securing non-ICC income among others. The ICC Development wing in Africa group their members into groups A, B and C base on the development works they do on their ground. They look at this to determine what kind of intervention they will prioritize. The above promotion news was broken to Sierra Leone by the Uganda born ICC Development Officer for Africa Justine Ligaligi who is also in Rwanda.
