Wednesday, November 13th 2013

By Innocent Ndawula

IN SUMMARY

Coach to ring changes for warm-up against Afghanistan today.

Abu Dhabi - Coach Johan Rudolph was a livid man after Uganda succumbed to a six-wicket defeat against Papua New Guinea (PNG) in the first warm-up match of the International Cricket Council (ICC) World Twenty20 Qualifiers here in Abu Dhabi yesterday.

Ugandan skipper Davis Karashani’s prayer to open the batting was answered as his opposite Chris Amini won the toss and stuck in the East Africans. But it turned out a good tactic for Amini as his side restricted a faltering Ugandan outfit to 114 for 5 before smothering home in style with a six in 18.4 overs (with eight balls to spare) at the newly-laid Sheikh Zayed Abu Dhabi Cricket Club Oval I.

“This is not so good,” Rudolph summed up Uganda’s showing.

“We operated at 40 percent. We were shot by 15 to 20 runs while batting and our spot bowling was missing. Some of the guys were just going through emotions especially the pace bowlers. We need to switch on because it looks like some people have forgotten why we are here.”

The South African tactician was not happy that Team Uganda dug themselves into a hole at 28 for 3 in 5 overs before Hamza Saleh (44* off 42) and skipper Davis Karashani (19* off 25) engineered recovery with an unbeaten 61-run partnership off 53 balls.

“We were always playing catch up,” added Rudolph. “You cannot play cricket like that at this stage. Only Frank Nsubuga (1 for 8) tried to control things at one end but the rest made it easy for the opposition with very many short balls.”

Ahead of today’s game against the leading Associates Afghanistan in Dubai Sports City, the 52-year-old said he would ring more changes.

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