Kenneth Waiswa, Uganda's golden arm in East Africa T20

After a gruelling 2023 East Africa Cup T20, which saw the three competing teams play 12 matches each at Gahanga International Cricket Stadium in Kigali, the capital of Rwanda, the team from Uganda emerged victorious after completely dominating the tournament, scoring as many as 11 wins in 12 matches.  

They finished with 22 points and a net run rate of +2.272, way ahead of Tanzania, who got 12 points thanks to six wins. Rwanda finished last with just one win and two points in 12 games. Tanzania (-0.125) and Rwanda (-2.163) had negative net run rates.

The star of the tournament was Uganda’s 24-year-old all-rounder Kenneth Waiswa, a right-handed batsman and a right-arm medium pacer. He finished with 202 runs at an average of 28.85 with 66 not out as his highest. He also took 20 wickets with 4/29 as the best and took 10 catches. The performance helped him win the Player of the Series Award.

In a candid chat, Waiswa spoke to www.theflyslip.online on the tournament and cricket in Uganda.

Excerpts:

Ques: How was the experience at the tournament?

Ans: The tournament was good for the three countries that took part in it as they have the Africa T20 World Cup qualifiers coming up in Namibia in November. So, an international tournament to gear up for the tournament gives a lot of the players and coaches a chance to go back and change a few things before the main event of the year.

The East Africa Cup T20 was a long tournament in terms of games played — 12 games for each country in nine days — and was really hectic for the players as teams like Tanzania haven’t been practicing. Hence it helped the teams explore their fitness levels, but also attracted injuries to the players.

Initially, the tournament was scheduled to have four teams but Ghana pulled out at the last minute leaving us compete with only Tanzania and host Rwanda.

Uganda managed to win 11 of their 12 games, losing just once to Tanzania. Our players showed hunger to keep the winning momentum in the team going.

Ques: What is the status of cricket in Uganda? How many players and how many teams?

Ans: Yeah, cricket is on the rise in the country, mostly in secondary schools in different regions of the country. Earlier, cricket was being played only in Uganda’s capital city of Kampala, and Jinja, but now you find schools in the far-eastern part, that’s Soroti district, up north in Gulu district and in the far western part in Kasese. Development officers /coaches have taken charge in these regions.

After coach Mahatlane Lawrence took over as coach of the national team in November 2020, by January the following year, the men’s national team was awarded with contracts in A, B and C grades. These contracts are still running and we have 24 players on contract now.

The ladies’ team also got contracts this year. There are 12 contracts among women cricketers, I think. Things are changing, I would say, and we are hoping for the best.

As far as domestic cricket is concerned, we have nine clubs in Division One and 11 in Division Two.

We are just struggling with grounds as we have got very few of them.

Ques: You were the Player of the Series. Talk us through your performance, and for how long you’ve been playing cricket?

Ans: It was a proud moment for me to do well for the team and help the team win. I just kept everything simple and wanted to be that man who is going to stand up and do the job for the team whenever called upon by the skipper and the gaffer. I have been preparing and working on my game, getting ready for different situations — for example bowling in the powerplay, in the middle and at the death and equipping myself with all it takes. Same with batting — being able to bat in any situation while called upon.

For me, it’s been hard work ever since I started playing back in 2012 when I was in my form 2 at Jinja Secondary School. My coach Mugalula Habibu always gave us a lot of time in batting. Since there were not many kids playing the game in my class, as they were hooked to football, I saw an opportunity in cricket and dropped football. I didn’t look back ever since I was given a scholarship the following year for the rest of my secondary school and that motivated me to work harder.

My family also influenced me to pick cricket as we were many kids at home going to school and my father didn’t have enough money to pay school fees for all of us. So, when I saw an opportunity as the only kid doing sports at home [and earning scholarship] I knew I will relieve my dad of the burden of school fees so I had to make sure I do my best to get and be good at it.

I played a bit of mini cricket at my primary school (Magwa Primary School) in Jinja but back then football for the real deal you know, until I met this coach at Jinja SSS.

Cricket, T20, Uganda, T20 World Cup, East Africa, Africa Cricket Association, Tanzania, Rwanda