Four Wickets Down and Still 21 Short: Botswana Win a Slow Afternoon as Sierra Leone's Chase Never Finds a Gear

The last league match of a tournament between the two sides at the bottom of the table does not usually produce much drama, and this one did not pretend to. What it did produce was a curious sort of T20: a winning total of 121, a losing side that lost only four wickets, and a Player of the Match from the team that lost.

Botswana made 121 for 8 after being sent in, and Sierra Leone finished on 100 for 4. The margin was 21 runs. Botswana end the tournament with two wins, both of them against Sierra Leone, who go home without one.

Botswana lost Monroux Kasselman, who had made 74 against Kenya the day before, in the second over, and Vinoo Balakrishnan at the end of the eighth with the score 42. After that Valentine Mbazo and Phemelo Silas built the innings' only substantial partnership, 57 for the third wicket, and at 99 for 2 in the fifteenth over Botswana were looking at something like 140.

They got 121. Silas was lbw at 99, Thabo Thupane fell a run later, Mbazo was caught for 50 from 48 in the seventeenth, and by the 19th over Botswana were 111 for 7 — five wickets for 12 runs. Boemo Kgosiemang's 10 not out from seven balls rescued a few of them.

A target of 122 was well within reach, and Alusine Turay began as if he knew it: 20 from 8 balls, three fours and a six, and Sierra Leone were 28 for 1 after four overs when he fell. Then the chase stopped. Raymond Coker batted into the thirteenth over for 20 from 53 balls, and by the time he was out Sierra Leone were 59 for 2 and needed 63 from 42.

Abu Kamara's 40 not out from 31 was the innings Sierra Leone needed an hour earlier. The innings ended with six wickets unused and Sierra Leone 21 runs short. Vinoo Balakrishnan's four overs for 12 and Botlhe Keganne's 2 for 20 were the spells that choked the middle overs.

After the run-fest of the day's first match, the second produced 221 runs across 40 overs. The ground that yielded 197 to Uganda in the morning looked a lot less generous in the afternoon, and both sides found scoring hard against bowlers who kept it straight: Coker and Balakrishnan both went at three an over or less.

An award for a player from the losing side, and it was earned with the ball: four overs, a maiden, 2 for 11 — the best figures of the match — against a Botswana order that was trying to accelerate. His 53-ball 20 with the bat was a different story, and he would probably be the first to say so. It was a day on which the ball was easier to control than the chase.

This match didn't have a CricIntel preview — we'll have full analysis for the final.

Both sides' tournaments are over. Botswana finish fourth with two wins; Sierra Leone finish fifth without one, though their bowling in this match suggested a side closer to competitive than the table shows. Saturday's final is Uganda against Kenya, the two teams who finished level on 14 points.