Uganda’s Baby Victoria Pearls Cricket U-19 girls will be hosting the Tanzanian U-19 girls for a training tour from July 20th to 27th 2024 in Kampala.
This was confirmed in a press statement released on Monday, July 15, 2024, by the Uganda Cricket Association (UCA).
According to UCA, the teams will test each other in five T20I games that will be played at the Lugogo Cricket Oval.
Both teams are preparing for the U-19 Girls World Cup Qualifiers that will be held in Kigali next month.
“Fourteen teams will compete to be the sole representative for the rest of Africa at the U-19 World Cup, which will be held next year in Malaysia. The training tour gives the technical team a chance to fine-tune their game plans before the final team for the qualifiers is selected,” read part of the statement.
The Baby Victoria Pearls’ head coach, Yusuf Nanga, said that the competition will help the players gain confidence in themselves.
“This tournament will help give the girls match practice, help us work on combinations both with the ball and bat and also help build confidence amongst the players. We have some girls who were part of the last qualifiers in Botswana, but we have added several new players to the squad who have never played international cricket, and this tournament should help them get a taste of international cricket,” Nanga said.
Uganda finished fourth in the last qualifiers in 2023 in Botswana, while Tanzania missed out on the World Cup at the final hurdle after losing to Rwanda. The U-19 Girls World Cup is a new ICC tournament, with the first edition won by India in South Africa in 2023.