Why the Cricket Cranes must fancy their chances

The journey to that new world starts on November 9 when Uganda faces a Denmark outfit it beat to the Division Four title mid this year. Cricket Cranes captain Roger Mukasa left for Muscat, Oman today selling a stay in Division Three, for starters, as his side’s primary goal.

The worth of the Cricket Cranes will, however, be largely measured by its ability to right an enduring wrong - making that seemingly elusive climb up to Division Two. If it is not immediately obvious why Mukasa has lowballed Cricket Cranes’ chances, just know that the team has never seen the purpose in talking up its chances. Such bravado invites needless pressure, one player recently told your columnist.

Yet the Cricket Cranes cannot afford to treat the forthcoming Division Three tournament in Oman as a mere sparring session. They will risk straying into punch-bag territory if they do.

Thankfully all indicators suggest that Steve Tikolo’s charges will be competitive in Oman. It helps a great deal that they will commence their campaign with what on paper look like winnable fixtures against Denmark and USA.

While the United States have beefed up their squad to the point of shedding off the tag of a slouch, one gets the sense that a burning desire to avenge last year’s loss on a slow Entebbe wicket will bode well for Uganda.

Fixtures against hosts Oman, neighbours Kenya and Singapore should be touch and go. All three have weapons that could hurt the Cricket Cranes, but this should in all honesty be a tournament in which Uganda must fancy its chances.

The flat decks should bring the best out of the boundless batting skill set of Mukasa, Dinesh Nakrani and Ronak Patel. Observers have rightly flagged the wicketkeeping area as one that national selectors addressed with characteristic fatalism.

News of the selection of Arnold Otwani ahead of Fred Achelam has indeed been greeted with horror and dismay. Achelam has every right to feel hard done by, and it was disingenuous on the part of the selectors to claim that the youngster was out injured only for him to turn up for club duty the next weekend! The selectors should have told us was what informed the selection of Otwani, which is the flat decks in Oman. They tend to force spinners to bowl straight, and this usually takes wicketkeepers out of the equation.

All this of course means that Otwani’s odds of dropping gaffes thanks to pedestrian glovework, which he can be capable of, are long. He will nevertheless have to prove himself when he’s asked to open the batting with Mukasa.

It will be a tournament where any mistake from him will be put under the microscope. Needless to say your columnist wouldn’t want to be in shoes.

Of Kasito, experience, Kobs’ seventh Cup win

Before last weekend, the last time the unfailingly polite and deferential Adrian Kasito took a place kick in a Cup final it proved to be pivotal on two accounts.

That was back in 2014. Crocs won the maiden edition of the Rugby Super Series at the death, but also something else happened. Something less monumental, but noteworthy regardless. Protectors coach Robert Seguya was plunged into a stupor that - with reluctance and against his better judgment - had his players awkwardly carry him to an on-waiting ambulance.

While Bobby Musinguzi was spared the ignominy of not only collapsing in a heap, but having to use the ambulance, danger was never far away for the Black Pirates coach during last weekend’s Uganda Cup final.

This owed much to Kasito’s boot than anything else. Betway Kobs’ pack (more on it later) had bulldozed its way to fashioning a second try, giving whichever kicker that stepped forward a chance to split the posts with extras that would give the men in blue their first lead in the Cup final. Ivan Kirabo and James Ijongat had taken on place kicking duties with varying degrees of catastrophe.
Then up stepped Kasito.

Since that match-winning kick in the 2014 Rugby Super Series, Kasito found it profoundly difficult to get game time in his once-upon-a-time preferred scrum-half position. He, however, took what little romance there was out of playing as a sweeper for the Uganda Sevens and revived his 15s career.

When your columnist asked Kasito if he still was adept at place-kicking after his try had won Uganda the 2017 Africa Men’s Sevens title, he responded with considerable misgiving.

Yet when Kobs sought to address their place-kicking ills last weekend, they found an answer in Kasito. His conversion and brace of penalties when success was by no means assured secured a seventh title for Kobs along with a Man of the Match accolade.

While Kasito thoroughly merited the plaudits, the manner in which Pirates remained uncomfortable in the presence of Kobs’ forwards at the business end of the final was sharply brought into plain view. Kobs managed to get under the Sea Robbers’ skin by slowing down the game.

The manner in which the likes of Timothy Mudoola, Roger Rukundo, Robert Byabashaija and Victor Wadia took the ball into the pack showed that there is no substitute for experience.

Leadership, a time honoured cliche reminds us, is one of sport’s intangibles and it undoubtedly offshoots from experience.

At the turn of the second millennium right up to 2005, Hima Cement Heathens had a throttle-hold on the Uganda Cup thanks to nothing but experience. They repeatedly subjected Kobs to what it did Pirates last weekend. Heathens effortlessly did by controlling the tackle area and in the process denying a youthful Kobs side full of pace to burn quick possession. Whether Pirates will learn the error of its ways remains to be seen. What is clear though is that Kobs have drawn first blood and will take some beating!

What we now know....

We now know that Yunus Ssentamu is not Sébastien Desabre’s cup of tea. How?
Even with Emma Okwi ruled out of this month’s 2019 Africa Cup of Nations qualifier at home to Cape Verde, Sentamu has not made a 30-strong provisional squad the Frenchman named this past week.

Rewards of consistency
We know that Desabre instead chose to look at options from the StarTimes Uganda Premier League, with Dan Sserunkuma and Viane Sekajugo being rewarded for productive starts to the new season.

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