Loss shows how far we have to go to bridging the gap: Masaba

On June 6 (Thursday), the new boys Uganda made history when they won their first T20 World Cup clash against Papua New Guinea. But just three days after that result, the African side were shown reality when they were absolutely battered by the hosts, West Indies.

While Uganda did well to reduce the hosts to 173 after 20 overs, their run chase never took off, with Akeal Hosein absolutely dominating proceedings. The left-arm spinner put a huge hole in Uganda’s aspirations of a win here in Guyana with a spell of 5/11, the best-ever figure for a West Indian bowler in T20 World Cup history.

Uganda folded for an all-time low of 39, where their top run-scorer on the night was Juma Miyagi, who scored 13 off 20 balls - the only batter to have a double-digit score. In the aftermath of the stinging defeat, Uganda's skipper Brian Masaba spoke about the gap between the two sides. 

“Yeah, tough day for us out there. Again, it's a very steep learning curve for us as a nation starting out. It just shows how far we have to go to bridge the gap in class between the sides but as a team that's learning a lot, a lot of lessons to take from today's game,” Masaba said in the post-match press conference. 

Masaba also heaped praises on Hosein, who also had a unique record of picking up five wickets via bowled or LBW. 

“I thought Akeal bowled brilliantly, he's obviously a classy player, he's done it around the world for a number of years now. And he got them off to the right start, so it's always going to be tough for us being five down in the powerplay,” he had to add. 

“But again, lots of lessons to take back home, lots of things to learn, some positives speak from the game especially with the way we bowled at the back end to restrict them to score under 200. They have a very powerful batting lineup, and I thought we managed to contain them there,” Masaba said. 

Despite qualifying through the African Qualifier region, where they went past Zimbabwe, the bridge between the Cricket Cranes and the other countries at the global event was huge. Masaba viewed the experience as a big positive, stating that facing bigger and tougher opponents was the only way they could improve. 

“Yeah, it's going to take a lot of work there's no way around it you've got to work very, very hard to get your skill level up there - that's the only way you can improve your skill so it's a question of hard work and more games against top quality opposition because I think I said it before you're only as good as the teams you play against. So, we need to find a way to bridge that gap, make sure we get quality opposition over a sustained period of time. That's the only way we can get better,” he concluded.

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