Kwibuka Women's T20: Rwanda, Nigeria's rivalry ends with the West African knee on ground

Kwibuka Women's T20: Rwanda, Nigeria's rivalry ends with the West African knee on ground 

Akanimo Kufre

It was a renewed clash for cricket supremacy at the IPRC Oval in Kigali between host, Rwanda and Nigeria on Thursday's game at the ongoing Kwibuka Women's T20 cricket competition where Nigeria lost by 23 runs.

Before their 7th game, both countries have won three games and lost three as well. The match was a decider, who sits higher on the log.

Bimenyimana Marie Diane led the Rwandan girls like last April in Lagos while Blessing Etim ushered in her Nigerian squad into the encounter. She had won the toss but elected the Yellow Green girls to field first- a perfect strategy for Nigeria.

Rwanda girls batted first, and pushed as much for big runs but were slowed to 91 runs for 7 wickets at end of 20 overs.

In the second innings, Blessing Etim's side needed to convert 120 balls bowled at them to score 92 runs to win. But that was not a cakewalk when a proud arch-rival is defending. 

Rwandan captain, Marie Diane's posture and beautiful looks can be deceiving. She is unforgiving on the cricket pitch because Blessings had "woken the beast in her" for some time. 

Rwanda's opener and former captain, Sarah Uwera has wrapped out through LBW (leg before wickets) by Nigeria's Chinyenum George. 

Before being given out by the umpire Uwera, another Rwanda beauty had lasted 1 hour 10 minutes in the batting crease and scored 32 runs off 42 balls.

In the second inning, Rwanda's bowlers made Nigeria's first 3 batters wonder and stuck flat-footed, scoring only 6 runs off 26 balls. Nigeria's opener, Favour Eseigbe lasted for 17 minutes and scored 2 runs from 10 balls. The second batter lasted 5 minutes with only a run of 10 balls too. Esther Sandy who was the shining star on Wednesday against Tanzania, scored 0 runs as she was run out by Giselle Ishimwe.

Blessing Etim got up from the bench as a middle-order batter to stop Rwanda from messing with her girls. The Nigerian captain was in her element as she hooked 29 runs off 47 balls and not out. 

Salome Sunday stepped in after Abigail Igbobie was retired. Abigail has allowed too many dot balls at a time Nigeria needed to hit more boundaries. Salome started to throw back the pressure on Rwanda with 2 boundaries before Marie Diane's pact with Cathia brought her sweet strike to an abrupt end.

Nigeria could only make a total of 68 runs off 120 fairly delivered balls by the Rwandan team.

Again, the Rwandan girls proved superiority over Nigeria because they are better trained, better equipped and most likely better motivated to play cricket. 

Nigeria's female team equally deserve some kudos for a show of bravery and improved fielding skills. Worthy of note is the skill set of a debutant, Sarah Ekwere. It is hoped that with continued inspiration from the current NCF President, Mr Uyi Akpata and hopefully with commensurate support from the Nigerian government, Nigerian cricket can boast of a brighter future with lots of young potential.

After the round-robin stage of 7 games by each of the 8 participating countries. Rwanda's top batters lead Nigeria in runs. Captain, Marie Diane ranked 5th with 159 runs and Giselle Ishimwe was 9th with 117 runs.

Salome Sunday was Nigeria's top scorer, 11th with 107 runs to her name while captain Blessing Etim came 28th with 57 runs from 6 games.

The top bowlers among the two rivals are Nigeria's Rachael Samson, Rukayat Abdul and Favour Eseigbo all recorded 9 wickets. They ranked 9th, 10th and 11th respectively.

In the Best fielding category, Henriette Ishimwe of Rwanda was overall 3rd with 7 dismissals, her compatriot, Flora Irakoze had 4 dismissals and ranked 10th.

Nigeria's Salome Sunday equally had 4 dismissals but ranked 15th. Her tribal sister, Sarah Ekwere recorded 3 dismissals and occupied the best Fielder. 

In considering which of the two countries has the potential Most Valuable Player (MVP), Rwanda has an edge with Henriette Ishimwe being 3rd on the leader's board with 28.9 points. 7th was Giselle Ishimwe, ICC Africa Patricia Kambarami's 'adopted daughter' 26.3point.

Nigeria's closest MVP was at 12th position, Favour Eseigbe with 23.4 points while Rachael Samson was 22nd with 17.4 points.