Four Overs, Three Maidens, One Run: Rwanda Hold Sierra Leone to 46 and Win by 145

There are scorecards that need interpreting and scorecards that simply need reading, and this one belongs to the second kind. Rwanda 191 for 4. Sierra Leone 46 for 9. Rwanda won by 145 runs, the biggest margin of the tournament so far, and made it two wins from three.

The figure that will be quoted belongs to Muhammad Nadir: four overs, three maidens, one run, no wickets. Twenty-three of his twenty-four deliveries were dot balls. There were three run-outs in the Sierra Leone innings, a first-ball wicket, and a stretch in which six wickets fell for 22 runs.

But the figure worth remembering belongs to a Sierra Leonean. George Sesay came in at 21 for 6 in the eighth over and was still there at the end, 13 not out from 42 balls. Nobody on his side faced more deliveries, and it was his third unbeaten innings in three matches.

Rwanda's batting was complete in a way it had not been against Kenya the day before. Hamza Khan, out for a two-ball duck on Wednesday, hit three sixes in a 19-ball 33, and with Didier Ndikubwimana he put on 75 for the first wicket inside 6.2 overs. Ndikubwimana went on to 52 from 31 with eight fours before he was caught off Raymond Coker at 103 in the tenth.

The middle of the innings belonged to Isae Niyomugabo, another of Wednesday's ducks, and Oscar Manishimwe. They added 67 from 51 balls for the third wicket — not spectacular, but it took Rwanda from 103 for 2 to 170 for 2 in the nineteenth over with no alarms. Niyomugabo's 55 from 39 was the top score. David Uwimana's 9 from 3 balls at the end took the total past 190 for the second time in three matches.

Then Rwanda bowled and fielded as though every run mattered, which in net-run-rate terms it did. Six bowlers were used and none conceded more than 18. Eric Kubwimana took Coker with the first ball of the chase and later Alusine Turay; Emile Rukiriza took 2 for 7 in four overs; Martin Akayezu bowled two overs for two runs, took a wicket, and ran out two more batters — Abu Kamara on his own and Samuel Conteh with Nadir. Lansana Lamin was the third run-out, Hamza Khan and Rukiriza combining. Ndikubwimana held a catch behind the stumps to go with his fifty.

There is no kind way to describe 28 for 9, and Sierra Leone will not want one. They lost Coker to the first ball, Abu Kamara to a run-out three balls later, and Alusine Turay — whose 78 against Uganda the day before had been the best thing about their tournament — for 6 in the third over. By the time Mohamed Turay was lbw to Rukiriza at the end of the fourteenth, not one partnership in the innings had reached eight runs.

Then came the last one. George Sesay and Solomon Williams batted out the final six overs without being parted, 18 runs from 36 balls, the highest stand of the innings. It will not appear in any highlights package. But Sierra Leone batted their twenty overs, and in a tournament where net run rate may yet matter, that is not nothing.

Sesay's tournament deserves a paragraph of its own. With the bat: 20 not out against Kenya, 1 not out against Uganda, 13 not out here — 34 runs, 64 balls, never dismissed. With the ball, he has bowled his four overs in all three matches and returned 4-0-38 every single time, for four wickets in all. Against Rwanda he bowled Niyomugabo. Some cricketers are defined by one great day. Sesay, so far, is defined by being the same man every day, which on a side losing heavily is its own quiet kind of excellence.

And the bowling, as a unit, was an improvement. Sierra Leone had conceded 204 against Kenya and 250 against Uganda; here they held Rwanda to 191. Raymond Coker (4-0-26-1, including Ndikubwimana's wicket) was the most economical of their six bowlers, and Rwanda added only 21 after 170 for 2.

The surface that produced 191 in the first innings produced 46 in the second, and it would be a stretch to blame the pitch for the gap. Rwanda's batters struck at 168, 174, 141 and 137 in their four main innings; none of Sierra Leone's eleven struck at better than 80.

What the numbers do say is that Rwanda have the most complete slow-bowling attack in this competition. Across three matches, the off-spinner Yves Cyusa and the slow left-armer Muhammad Nadir have bowled 21 overs for 61 runs and taken 12 wickets, at an economy of 2.90. They are first and second on the tournament's wicket-taking list. On a ground where totals of 190 or more have been made four times in six matches, that kind of control has been worth more than anything else.

Didier Ndikubwimana took the Player of the Match award in the first game of this tournament for 69 from 60. This time he got there faster: 52 from 31 balls, eight fours and a six, a strike rate of 167.74. He then kept wicket through Sierra Leone's innings and took the catch that removed Aliya Kamara.

He now leads the tournament's run-scoring with 144 from three innings at an average of 48. What makes those numbers more interesting than the raw total is the range inside them — a patient 69 when Rwanda needed a platform, 23 in a low-scoring defeat, and now a fast fifty on a day when the match was there to be taken early. Batters who can change tempo from game to game are the ones tournaments are won around.

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

After six matches, Rwanda have two wins from three and a net run rate of +3.25. Kenya have two wins from two (+2.475), as do Uganda (+6.109). Botswana (-4.118) and Sierra Leone (-5.883) have yet to win.

Rwanda's next match is the one the tournament has been waiting for: the hosts against Uganda, the holders, on Friday. Uganda have made 250 and chased 102 in 9.3 overs; Rwanda have the two leading wicket-takers in the competition. After that come Botswana on Sunday and a rematch with Kenya on Tuesday.

Sierra Leone play Botswana on Saturday in a meeting of the two winless sides, then Kenya on Sunday and Uganda on Tuesday. Saturday is the one to target. They will need more from the top order than 6 runs from the first three batters, and they will want Alusine Turay's bat from Wednesday rather than Thursday. They already have the man to hold an end.