Kent Cricket Club Sierra Leone lost their opening league match to Asian Pro by 5 wickets in the Mercury T20 Premier League at the Prince of Wales School Ground, Kingtom, Freetown on Sunday 17th December 2017.
The young Kent team won the toss and opted to bat first and scoring 97/7 in 20 overs. The Asian spinners were right on top of their game and the Kent batsmen were not comfortable playing against spin. However, Kent's experience opening batsman Musa Sam Ganda scored 30 runs before he got injured while the young all-rounder Mohamed Lamin Kamara scored 17 runs not out in a very difficult situation.
Asian Pro Bowling leg spinner Gulshan bowled for 4 overs conceding only 11 runs for 1 wicket while off spinner Mohamed Khan bowled 3 overs, conceding 10 runs for 1 wicket. All the other Asian bowlers took one wicket each. In reply, Asian Pro scored 98/5 in 12.2 overs. Waqa scored 24 runs and Shashank scored 16 runs.
Apart from the poor batting displayed by the Kent team, the bowling also was a major problem as 30 extras was given in the 12.2 overs. Young bowler Richard Rengbeh was outstanding for Kent conceding just 11 runs in 3 overs and took 1 wicket.
Joseph Pessima, Head Coach, said “our bowlers were trying to bowl too fast instead of bowling on line and length and that caused them to bowl so many wides. The loss served as a motivation to the team for their next match".
“This is our second season in the Premier League with a very young and promising squad that we are working with and we hope that in the next 3 years these boys will be developed enough to compete against other clubs that have experienced players”-says Joseph.
Kent will be looking to bounce back in their next league match against rival Regent Olympics Cricket Club on Sunday 24th December 2017 at the same venue. Kent and Regent Olympics have met three times and the latter have won all the three matches.
In another matches: Old Edwardians Cricket Club beat Regent Olympics Cricket Club by 20runs on Saturday 16th December 2017 and on Sunday afternoon, Republic of Sierra Leone Arm Forces Cricket Club beat Regent Olympics Cricket Club by 2runs.