When it mattered most, the senior national men’s cricket team lost to Sierra Leone for the first time at the just ended triple round robin Dafabet sponsored West Africa Trophy in Lagos.
Ghana, having beaten Sierra Leone 3 times at the 4-nation tournament including a 5 runs victory on Saturday, October 14, failed to repeat their supremacy over the patriots, who clinched the 3rd place spot after a ‘6 wickets’ win on Sunday, October 15, 2023.
The TBS Cricket Oval saw a different mood when Sierra Leone achieved the 73 runs target, for the loss of 4 wickets in 18 overs in the second innings.
Ghana had a poor first innings after winnings toss, scoring 72/10 in 18.1 overs, with only two players, Rexford Bakum 18(33) and Daniel Anefie 19(19), scoring double figures.
After the fall of the first wicket (Samson Awiah) on the 3.2, another fell on the 4.3, 5.2, and 5.3, while Ghana stood at 23/4. Anefie brought some power for boundaries from the 10th over when Michael Aboagye fell, but his reign, a good partnership with Rexford Bakum was cut short on the 13.5 over.
There were limited runs thereof but more fall of wickets and Sierra Leone had to relax to achieve their target to grab the all-important victory.
Captain of the Ghana team, Samson Kwasi Awe Awiah shared his disappointment after the game.
“It is disappointing to come up with such a total against Sierra Leone. I thought we really read the situations yesterday with regards to the conditions and decided to make sure we do better than we did yesterday, but it looks like this never went our way in the office. So, it is a bad day for us and we will learn to live with it.”
Meanwhile, host Nigeria triumphed for the 4th time over Rwanda by 17 runs, to lift the first edition West Africa Trophy in grand style later in the day. Nigeria scored 103/7 and limited Rwanda to 86/8.
The yellow greens for a record achieved this feat, having won all 10 matches played since October 4, 2023.
Ghana however, plus the 3rd place game lost 6 matches (3 against Nigeria, 2 against Rwanda and 1 against Sierra Leone) and won 4 matches (3 against Sierra Leone and 1 against Rwanda).
In all individual awards, only Daniel Anefie came 3rd in the Best Bowling Economy with 5.05. from 7 innings.
After 12 days of non-stop cricket. the team is expected to touch down in Accra on Monday, October 16, 2023 to continue with preparations to the rescheduled ACA T20 Africa Cup qualifiers at South Africa.
By: Davis Nii Attuquaye Clottey
