Meet Uganda, the newest African kid on the block
They have waited a long time to strut their stuff on the world stage; now their chance has come
Firdose Moonda01-Jun-2024Forty-three year-old Frank Nsubuga, the oldest player at this year’s T20 World Cup, has been playing high-level cricket for around 27 years, and he’s willing to share the secret to his longevity.”Every morning, I wake up and do my own jogging, maybe above 10km. Then I stretch and we train together [as a team] from about 10am.”He stays away from alcohol, and thinks that keeps him going. “I am happy with my cup of tea or coffee or juice,” he says.Nsubuga made his debut in 1997 at an ICC Zone 6 tournament as a teenager and he remembers a time when Afghanistan were still battling in the lower rungs of the international game.In fact, Nsubuga played the decisive hand in a Division Three match between Uganda and Afghanistan in 2009. Batting at No. 7, he scored 62 off 44 balls and took 1 for 29. Uganda won by 14 runs. They and Afghanistan ended the tournament tied on points, but Afghanistan’s higher net run rate allowed them to advance further and eventually join the big boys at the top of cricket’s pyramid.Related
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Uganda had to wait another 15 years for their chance to compete on the global stage. Finally, their time has come. And though they may be an unknown quantity to many in the cricketing world, they have a rich history in the game, full of characters. Nsubuga is just one example.Circa 1940, when Uganda was a British colony, some cricket was played in the country, between the settlers and a growing Asian trading community, but it really took off after Prince George Mawanda, a member of the royal Buganda tribal household, who was exposed to cricket during his education in the UK and at Trinity College in Sri Lanka, founded the African Cricket Club.The club gave the local black population an opportunity to compete against members of other communities, and throughout the 1950s and ’60s, a pentangular tournament, organised on ethnic and religious lines, was played in Uganda among the British, the “Indians” (mostly Hindus who had come to work on the East Africa Railway), the Goans (Catholic settlers from western India), the “Moslems” (who were largely traders), and the locals.The different teams also played in exhibition matches, including a famous one between an All-African XI and a Uganda Police side in 1959 to inaugurate the Lugogo Cricket Oval in Kampala. That game was attended by Britain’s Queen Mother. Mawanda was the star of the match, taking 6 for 21 and then hitting a six to win for his team.
To win the game, Prince George Mawanda hit a landing of the stadium onto Jinja road totalling the score of 106, beating the Police 11s by 3 wickets. (Newspaper article added below)
: @CricketUganda through Mr. Bessel, who was a part of Uganda Police Team. #BATBALL pic.twitter.com/Iny1g2B14o
— BATBALL Global (@BatballO) July 23, 2022
Legend has it the ball sailed over the perimeter wall and landed on the back of a lorry outside and was never recovered.Mawanda’s reputation soared with it, and he remains a celebrated figure in the Ugandan game. Since the 1990s, a tournament called the Mawanda Cup has been played in his honour, and he is considered the founding father of cricket among black Ugandans, who make up the majority of the national side.Unlike the United States or Canada, for example, Uganda’s international team is mostly made up of what we could call indigenous people: those whose families have lived in the country for generations. There are some exceptions, like Gilgit-born vice-captain Riazat Ali Shah, who moved to Uganda as a 16 year-old, but the Asian-heritage contingent in the squad is fairly small. That’s partly the result of the expulsion of Asians from Uganda during Idi Amin’s dictatorship from 1971 to 1979, and mostly due to an elite schooling system, which produces most of the country’s black cricketers.Busoga College Mwiri, in eastern Uganda is one of the best known of these schools. It is the alma mater of deposed Ugandan president Milton Obote, and former Ugandan cricketers Henry Osinde and Kenneth Kamyuka. Ntare School, in the west, is the other, which was home to the current president of Uganda, Yoweri Museveni, and of Rwanda, Paul Kagame, both of whom played cricket.Uganda’s players take a break during training ahead of this year’s World Cup in Kampala•AFP/Getty ImagesGiven the cost of equipment for the game, cricket mostly remained an elite sport in the country and one that was largely spread through family ties.Nsubuga, for example, has a brother currently in the Ugandan side – Roger Mukasa – and another who played previously, Lawrence Sematimba, now the coach of the national women’s team. Uganda’s top-run scorer in T20Is Simon Ssesazi and leading wicket-taker Henry Sseyondo are also brothers.Innocent Ndawula, a journalist for the Daily Monitor newspaper and current media manager of the Uganda men’s team, can reel off the names of various cricketing lineages in the country. “Cricket came through as a family affair – the Kakoozas, the Lutaayas and the Walusimbis …”That last name may be familiar to World Cup anoraks. Samuel Walusimbi was one of two Ugandans in the East Africa squad at the 1975 World Cup (the other was John Nagenda, perhaps more well-known for his contribution to journalism and literature in Uganda). Walusimbi’s son, Tendo Mbazzi, also went on to play cricket. So, strictly speaking, Uganda has had representation at a cricket World Cup before, but they have never appeared at a global tournament as a national team. And they never really thought they could.It was with the arrival of former South African Under-19 coach Lawrence Mahatlane in late 2020 that the idea of qualifying for a World Cup was born. Nsubuga recalls the conversation Mahatlane had with the team. “When he saw the talent, he just told us, ‘You know, you guys can qualify for the 2024 World Cup. ‘Yes, you can make it.’ We were surprised. For me, that changed a lot of things in the years I have been here. He worked so hard with us.”Frank Nsubuga has taken 55 wickets at an economy of 4.7 in 54 T20Is•Joel Ford/ICC/Getty ImagesMahatlane left his post in October last year before the Africa Regional Qualifier, where Uganda shocked Zimbabwe to book their place at the 2024 T20 World Cup. The result was completely unexpected even for the players – Uganda hadn’t even played a Full Member team before.”When we lost to Namibia [in the previous game], we said to ourselves: let’s take this loss away and focus on the Zimbabwe game because that’s the only game we need to win to take us through in the World Cup,” Nsubuga says. “The boys were focused and looking forward to that game, and when we beat Zimbabwe, we couldn’t believe it. We were awake until 4 o’clock in the morning.”There was little time for celebration, though, because they still had matches against Nigeria, Kenya and Rwanda – all of which they won. Their 33-run victory over arch-rivals Kenya underlined Uganda’s position as the now-dominant East African side.When they returned home, they realised the magnitude of their achievement. “There were parties,” Nsubuga says. “We have been doing a lot of interviews, people are calling us to go on TV, to go on radio, and when we walk around, people we meet want to sit with us to talk about the games.”The Lugogo Stadium in KampalaNow the next challenge awaits. At the World Cup, Uganda are grouped with co-hosts West Indies, their old rivals Afghanistan, New Zealand, and Papua New Guinea. They understand their limitations as a team that does not have out-and-out pace bowlers or natural power-hitters.”We don’t see ourselves as a big-hitting team,” Nsubuga said. “We just want to play as a team, take it one game at a time and see ourselves growing in the game.”But he also wants to see if he can walk away with something he never imagined as a possibility when he started nearly three decades ago: a win in a World Cup match.”It’s been my dream to play at this level. I don’t know for sure if I am retiring. I’ll see how I’m feeling, how my body is feeling and then I’ll decide. Let me first push, and then I’ll let the world know.”Uganda also want to let the cricketing world know that they are here to stay.”They may not win the actual event, but they want to leave an imprint,” media manager Ndawula said. “They want to be the best team at every other thing. They would like to be the team that signs the most autographs, gives the most interviews, the team that will leave its dressing room the cleanest, and the team that will play to the most of its ability to entertain like the game calls for.”