In a year still struggling to come to grips of COVID-19 pandemic, Associate cricket nations are finding it tough to arrange International matches amid restrictions on training or travel across borders, and while few members have managed to resume International cricket in the Africa and Asia regions, it’s the Women’s cricket in the African region, that has now been given the biggest boost by Rwanda Cricket Association (RCA).
RCA have announced that they are preparing to organize the Kwibuka Memorial T20 Women’s tournament from June 06th – 12th, 2021 at the Gahanga Cricket Stadium in Kigali. Invitations were sent to no less than 9 regional members that included the likes of Zimbabwe, Namibia, Uganda, Kenya, Tanzania among others. However, the tournament will now be played between five countries including the host’s, and team’s from Kenya, Botswana, Namibia and Nigeria travelling to Rwanda for the tournament, that will be played at Gahanga International Ground in Kigali.
The Kwibuka Memorial tournament is an annual event which started in 2014 in remembrance of the victims of the 1994 Genocide against Tutsi. Kenya have won the tournament three times (2015, 2017 and 2018) while Uganda had won it twice (2014 and 2016) and Tanzania being the winners of the 2019 edition. Uganda Women were originally scheduled to take part in the competition but had to withdrew few days before the start of the competition due to COVID-19 positive cases found among players staying in the bio-bubble environment in Uganda.
The tournament might end up being the only International event that takes place between multiple nations before the ICC Women’s T20 World Cup Africa regional qualifiers, set for September 03rd – 11th in Botswana. With T20I team ranking points also on offer, the countries will look not only to improve their rankings, but also get to analyze their competition ahead of the ICC qualifiers. All the teams in the competition will play each other during the single round-robin group stages, before the top 4 teams in the points table advance to the semifinals.
Rwanda Squad and warm-up games scores
Botswana Squad and warm-up games scores
Nigeria Squad and warm-up games scores
Kenya Squad and 2019 T20I results
With the tournament being organized under strict Covid-19 Standard Operating procedures in Rwanda, some of the measures taken include social distancing, temperature checks/testing, sanitization for players, crew and equipment.
2021 Kwibuka Memorial Women’s T20I Tournament Schedule
06th June 2021: Botswana Women v Rwanda Women @9:30am and Namibia Women v Nigeria Women @1:50pm
07th June 2021: Kenya Women v Botswana Women @9:30am and Rwanda Women v Namibia Women @1:50pm
08th June 2021: Nigeria Women v Kenya Women @9:30am and Namibia Women v Botswana Women @1:50pm
09th June 2021: Kenya Women v Namibia Women @9:30am and Rwanda Women v Nigeria Women @1:50pm
10th June 2021: Rwanda Women v Kenya Women @9:30am and Botswana Women v Nigeria Women @1:50pm
11th June 2021: Semifinal#1 (Rwanda Women vs Kenya Women) @9:30am and Semifinal#2 (Namibia Women vs Nigeria Women) @1:50pm
12th June 2021: Third-place Play-off (Rwanda Women vs Nigeria Women) @9:30am and Final (Kenya Women vs Namibia Women) @1:50pm
