An-nadil Jamaly and Ngara Sports Club B will come up against each other in Qualifier 2 – the third play off before Sunday’s eagerly-awaited final of Nairobi Cricket Association (NPCA)
T20 Division Two.
The two teams are expected to unleash their best cricket at Sikh Union ground on Saturday (from 2:30pm onwards), as only the winner will progress in the competition and take on the
fancied Legends Cricket Club team in Sunday’s eagerly awaited Final.
Jamaly topped the Group A log of the league season winning 6 of their 7 group-stage matches.
Legends Cricket Club ,on the other hand, also won six out of seven and finished first on the Group B log.
But Legends secured a passage to the final by defeating An-nadil Jamaly by 7 wickets at Ruaraka Sports Club in last weekend’s Qualifier 1.
Both Ngara B and An-nadil teams know full well the magnitude of Q2 as it will be end of the journey for the team that loses on Saturday.
An-nadil got a lifeline after their loss to Legends in Q1 but now hope to vent their spleen on Ngara B side.
Ali Asghar, Hussein Shabbir and Yusuf Jainuddin are expected to spearhead An-nadil’s top order and so will Jitesh Patel, Murtaza Abass and Bharat Panchasara from the Ngara side.
Whatever’s up their sleeves will be known at the conclusion of Saturday’s March which starts at Sikh Union ground, which also hosted the Super League T-20 Finals last weekend.
Ngara B prevailed to Saturday’s Q2 after defeating Stray Leopards Cricket Club B by 5 wickets at Ruaraka grounds also last weekend.
The conclusion of Division Two T20 season will also see several
standout players rewarded for their exemplary performances across the board.
Ajay Hirani of Meru Cricket Club A Team currently tops the Run Scores table with 342 ahead of Navpreet Singh with 284 runs.
Lokesh Anand of Legends CC has the most wickets at the present. He has gotten his mitts on 16 wickets in 8 innings.
The leading fielder, with the most dismissals, is non other than Legend’s Raj Shetty.
The race for the Most Valuable Player is also taking shape with Navpreet Singh of Legends team and Joms Joy in the lead with 44.938 and 43.166 points respectively.
The MVP is calculated and generated automatically by the CricHeroes App introduced by NPCA last year; taking into account various facets of the game like the number of wickets, batter’s strike rate, bowler strike rate and fielder contribution.
Meanwhile, NPCA is embarking on a full- blown campaign to elevate the standards of junior and women’s cricket to desirable levels.
NPCA Hon Secretary Narendra Patel aka NK while making the announcement at last weekend’s Super League T-20 Finals, said the initiative is a deliberate move aimed at bolstering the standards of cricket as well as ensuring inclusivity in the sport, by and large.
“Generally, we have had the knockouts after the T20, but because of the current weather issue we have decided to play two tournaments; one will be the junior championship and the other for women during this break of six weeks, we are going to have an Under-19 League and we are hoping to have as many teams participating as possible” remarked NK.
“For the ladies,” continued NK, “we have just brought on board two ladies to help us promote Womens cricket in Nairobi.”
NK added that currently there is only one lady’s team that plays in Division Two.
He continued: “But I understand that we have 40-50 ladies who want to play cricket and so we want to have a specific ladies-only league up and running.”
NK went on to explain that the T20 season has been an eye-opening experience in as far as development of cricket in the city of concerned.
“If you look at the Super Division and Division One T20 season that was completed last weekend, we have witnessed quite a number of youngsters who have performed really well
and that’s a positive sign, but still much needs to be done.”
“We want to speak to the clubs to bring in new players. And also national body (Cricket Kenya) should follow suit,” added NK.
