Malawi Senior Men’s National Cricket Team has finished with silver medals at this year’s International Cricket Council (ICC) Men’s T20 World Cup Sub-Regional Africa Qualifiers in Dar es Salaam, Tanzania.
The visitors lost by 19 runs to the hosts in a thrilling final Thursday.
Tanzania won the toss and elected to bat first in the battle for supremacy as both teams had already booked a place to next year’s ICC Men’s T20 Division One Regional World Cup Qualifiers to take place in March next year.
The hosts were bowled out for 119 in 19.4 overs after an early struggle and loss of wickets, but they managed to put up a respectable total.
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All eyes were on Malawi’s prowess to chase down Tanzania’s total.
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However, the hosts defended their total, bowling out Malawi for 100 in 20 overs to claim victory.
Cricket Malawi President Vivek Ganesan said they were pleased with the team’s performance despite settling for the second slot.
“Firstly, I would like to say that we are all very happy that the Malawi men’s team has been promoted to T20 Africa Division One. We achieved our first target.
“Our second target was to win the Sub-Regional qualifiers. Unfortunately, we lost to Tanzania in the last match to finish second,” he said.
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Ganesan said Cricket Malawi will now focus on how to improve the men’s senior side before next year’s qualifiers, at a venue to be announced later by ICC.
“Now we need to start working on preparations for the ICC Men’s T20 Division One Africa Regional World Cup Qualifiers to take place in March next year, which is only five months away. We have a lot of work to do between now and then.
“We want to stay in Division One and progress from there. We have no intention of coming back to Division Two,” he said.
During the qualifiers, Malawi beat Mali, Ghana, Lesotho and Cameroon but lost once to Tanzania.
