New Zealand pace duo Tim Southee and Trent Boult opted to bowl first after winning the toss, hitting Uganda’s top order in opening overs.
Boult dismissed Simon Ssesazi and Simon Ssesazi for golden ducks with his first two deliveries. Southee joined in as well; he trapped Alpesh Ramjani leg-before wicket for a six-ball duck thus leaving Uganda on 2/3 in 3.4 overs.
Hence, New Zealand recorded a comprehensive nine-wicket victory over Uganda in their ICC T20 World Cup Group C encounter at Trinidad and Tobago on Saturday. This win came after the team had been eliminated from the tournament already as a consequence of previous defeats.
After powerplay, Uganda found itself in trouble at 9/3 due to high quality pace bowling by New Zealand. In fact, no resistance was provided by middle order batters leading to loss of half of the side at half way stage with only 21 runs on board.
Also helping out were New Zealand’s spinners Mitchell Santner and Rachin Ravindra who took two wickets each. No other Ugandan batter reached double figures except Kenneth Waiswa who scored 11 runs before being bowled out by Tim Southee resulting in teams dismissal of all towards mere score of 40 from 18.4 overs.
Despite losing opener Finn Allen early while chasing down a modest target of 41, Devon Conway’s quickfire knock of unbeaten twenty-two that contained four boundaries ensured that they cruised to an easy win with eighty-eight balls remaining.
Upon receiving his ‘Player of the Match’ award for taking three wickets, Southee revealed disappointment about his country’s failure to go past the first round despite making it into big finals over the last decade.
“It was pretty clinical performance, nice to get a win. It’s been a little bit tricky, just trying to hit the stumps with that variable bounce. We are disappointed at ourselves for not qualifying for the tournament. The first two games we were outplayed, we have got a good record in World Cups and it’s come to an end, “The pacer said as quoted by ANI.
In reply to a query on whether he has another world cup in him, the veteran stated, “Leading into this world cup I had a nice break. I feel good within myself; I love playing cricket for New Zealand. A dream job playing cricket and still enjoy it so never say never.”
The win meant that New Zealand remained third in Group C with two points from three matches after West Indies and Afghanistan who qualified for the Super Eights stage. In fourth place was Uganda on two points from four matches.
Uganda was bowled out of ICC T20 World Cup 2024 by New Zealand with its spinner Mitchell Santner leading the assault against them by making 2 crucial wickets during his awesome spell of 2 overs where he did not concede any run while Rachin Ravindra took remaining two wickets thus leaving Uganda at 40 runs all out after struggling to bat through 18.4 overs. In spite of this success however, expectations wouldn’t be met for this team which boasts of a rich history in world cups throughout the last ten years.
