It was close for the senior national men’s cricket team who suffered a painful narrow defeat against Botswana in their second Group A match at the Willowmoore Park in the ongoing ACA T20 Africa Cup finals in South Africa this morning.
The match that could have sealed qualification to the semis for Ghana, played on Sunday, September 18, 2022 saw Ghana opt to field first after winning toss.
Botswana started slowly with a 1 run per ball average, and as at the 10th over, they were 60/4 on the scoreboard. The next 10 overs however saw a remarkable improvement as they finished 146 for 9 wickets.
Kofi Bagabena, who got the first wicket wrapped up with 4-0-17-2, while Daniel Anefie (4-0-36-2) and Rexford Bakum complete the players who got wickets.
Joseph Theodore and Amoluk Singh Sembhi opened the batting for Ghana in the second innings, but Theodore’s game ended in the first over, having scored 2 fours in 5 balls faced. Samson Awiah came in to restore calm but it wasn’t long and Amoluk fell on the stroke of the 5.1 over for LBW, when Ghana was 23 runs.
Ghana kept lacking behind the 1 run per ball till 13th over, with the score standing at 81/4 and a partnership between captain Obed Harvey (22-15) and Samson Awiah (36-41). Ghana lost control again with the fall of wickets, while going for boundaries, as eventual Player of the match, Dhruv Maisuria (A left spin bowler) dismissed 5, with an economy rate of 4.50 and figures standing at 4-0-18-5.
Kofi Bagabena was the last wicket to fall and on the last ball to wrap up game, with Ghana’s score at 135 for 10 wickets. Botswana won by 11 runs.
Ghana, having defeated Mozambique by 28 runs on Friday, would need a win against Uganda on Tuesday, September 20, at 12:00noon local time (10:00am Ghana time)
With the likes of Tanzania, Kenya, Nigeria and Cameroon battling out in Group B, winners and runners up will face each other for a slot in the finals on phases, Thursday, September 22, 2022.
