Sierra Leone senior men’s national team, known as the “Patriots”, will open their International Cricket Council Africa World Cricket League Division One tournament campaign against West Africa counterpart Ghana, today Friday 7th April 2016 in Benoni South Africa.
The Patriots, who are debuting in the tournament, will be looking forward to a bright start as they hope to defeat Ghana at Willowmoore Park B to register their first victory in the competition.
The Ghanaians are the favourite to win the match but Patriots Captain, Lansana Lamin, is confident of getting convincing victory even though they’ve been rated as underdogs prior to the start of the tournament. “The team is in high spirit to face the Ghanaians in today’s match. Our aim is to defeat them convincingly but we are quite aware of the fact that they have formidable squad with talented players”.
“The match will not be easy work for us, but as a disciplined side I have confidence that we will defeat the Ghanaians,” the Captain of Patriots assured.
“We’ve worked very hard to reach this stage. We knows exactly what we are here for, which is to perform to the best of our ability to win the tournament and qualify for the World Cricket League Division 5 or at least maintain our place in the Division one by avoiding the risk of relegating,” Lamin said.
Six nations including Sierra Leone, Botswana, Nigeria, Tanzania, Zambia and Ghana will compete against each other in the 50 overs format of the game.
During the tournament each country will play 5 matches each and the winner will be promoted to the ICC Africa World Cricket League Division 5.
Meanwhile, in the other matches Nigeria will engage Tanzania at Willowmoore Park A, whiles Botswana will be playing against Zambia at Willowmoore Park C. All matches start at 9:30 A.M South Africa Local time and 7:30 A.M GMT.
Sierra Leone Squad: Julius Brewah, Oluwole Compagnie-Coker, Abass Gbla, Yegbeh Jalloh, Emmanuel Kamara, Ibrahim Kamara, Ishmael Komba, Lansana Lamin (Captain), John Bangura, Mohamed Mansaray, Mohamed Khan, George Edward Ngagba and Bami Williams.
Ghana Squad: Peter Ananya (Captain), Isaac Aboagye, Michael Aboagye, Joseph Adotei, Moses Anafie, David Ankrah, Simon Ateak, Vincent Ateak, Samson Awiah, Kofi Bagabena, Godfred Bakiweyem, Frank Baleri, Julius Mensah and James Vifah.
By Magdalene S. Konneh
Friday April 07, 2017.