T20 World Cup 2024: Cricket in Uganda - A Journey of resilience and heritage

Nestled between the Democratic Republic of Congo to the west, Kenya to the east, South Sudan to the north, and Rwanda, Tanzania, and Lake Victoria to the south, Uganda's connection to the game might seem distant.

More so after their comprehensive defeat to Afghanistan in a men's T20 World Cup match in Providence on Monday (June 3), Uganda's maiden game as a national team at a global cricket event. Under pressure for 14.3 overs while Rahmanullah Gurbaz and Ibrahim Zadran shared an opening stand of 154 at a strike rate of 177.01, Uganda recovered well to restrict Afghanistan to 183/5. However, they collapsed to 58 all out in 16 shambolic overs, with only two batters reaching double figures and twice as many dismissed for ducks.

Uganda's captain, Brian Masaba, appeared appropriately despondent when addressing the media after the match: "It's a significantly higher level than what we are accustomed to, so we need to raise our game considerably."

Few expected Uganda to win. Nonetheless, their complete lack of competitiveness, particularly with the bat, would have disappointed their supporters. The day began as one of the most momentous in the country's sports history.

Deep-Rooted Cricket History

Uganda has won 11 Olympic medals, including four golds, in athletics and boxing. However, they have never participated in a football World Cup, nor in any other major events except for netball and sevens rugby. Qualifying for the grand stage of T20I cricket represented their greatest achievement in team sports. Yet, their subpar performance despite reaching this stage would have been unsettling.

"It was a special moment for us, hearing our national anthem and seeing our flag at the World Cup," Masaba shared. "It's something I will cherish for the rest of my life. As it was our first game, nerves played a big part. So, it was good to get that out of the way."

Nevertheless, a lackluster performance does not reflect Uganda's deep-rooted history in cricket, which has been played in the country for approximately 120 years. British colonists introduced the game to Uganda at the turn of the 20th century, and the national men's team first competed in 1914. In Nairobi in September 1958, an East Africa XI composed of players from Kenya, Tanganyika (now Tanzania), and Uganda faced a South African side led by Basil D'Oliveira.

Cricket's Journey Through East Africa

East Africa participated in the inaugural World Cup in England in 1975, as well as in the 1979, 1982, and 1986 editions of what was then known as the ICC Trophy and is now the World Cup Qualifiers. From 1990 to 1997, players from Malawi, Tanzania, Uganda, and Zambia were combined into an East and Central Africa team that competed in the ICC Trophy. From 2001 to 2014, Uganda emerged from this collective cricket setup to compete under its own flag.

Following the ICC's decision to grant official international status to T20 matches between any of its 104 members, Uganda played its first recognized T20I against Botswana in the Africa Region Final tournament in Kampala in May 2019. Over the following days, they faced Namibia, Kenya, and Ghana, with a scheduled match against Nigeria being washed out. Such is the reality of international cricket for the other half.

Having now played 91 T20Is, winning 69 and losing 19 before the T20 World Cup, Uganda is one of the 20 teams in the United States and the Caribbean. They reached this stage by finishing second to Namibia at the Africa Qualifier in Windhoek, Namibia's capital, in November. Uganda's five-wicket victory in a low-scoring match against Zimbabwe, their first match against a Test-playing nation, was pivotal.

An Unforgettable Moment

Dinesh Nakrani, a left-arm seamer, bowled Collins Obuya the from an midway boundary. flew high as seemed to safely. fall Nsubuga meters, still running towards the off ball his from back, the descended behind his from hand, held an in catch right and, forward length, full himself flung the as sprinting kept up, advancing the of arms his into leapt and, round all. the did cap only his then fall off. all ground, fair only was which. ensued Pandemonium

Cricket in the Shadow of Idi Amin

Still with us? Excellent. Here's hoping you now know more about Uganda than when you started reading this article. Perhaps before, all you knew was the name Idi Amin, the British Army cook who became the country's heavyweight boxing champion on his way to seizing power in a military coup in January 1971. He ruled with an iron fist, and his regime is estimated to have murdered around 500,000 people. A war with Tanzania forced him into exile in April 1979.

Among other impacts, Amin's rule left its mark on cricket. In August 1972, the notoriously xenophobic dictator gave Uganda's 50,000-strong South Asian community 90 days to leave the country. They abandoned their homes, businesses, and even their pets. They also left behind a strong influence on cricket, particularly among those of Goan heritage, who donated the Lowis Cup as the prize for the country's top club in 1923.

A Heritage of Cricket Legends

The Kampala Goan Institute won it seven times, but in 1923, the Asian Sports Association (ASA) reached the final against the Uganda Police team. The day before the match, Deoniz D'Souza cycled over 80 kilometers from Jinja to Kampala to play for the ASA. D'Souza scored an unbeaten 169, the centerpiece of his team's victory.

All this was at risk of being erased from Ugandan cricket history due to Amin's atrocities. However, the country also produced figures like George Mawanda, a prince in the royal Buganda family, educated in the United Kingdom and what was then Ceylon (now Sri Lanka), where he encountered the peculiar colonial game that stopped for lunch and tea. In the 1930s, Mawanda founded the African Cricket Club. In 1959, in front of a crowd that included the UK's Queen Mother, he took 6/21 and hit the six that won an All-African XI match against Uganda Police.

Mawanda remains revered in modern Ugandan cricket, where a trophy named in his honor in the 1990s is still contested. Surnames like Ndaula, Walusimbi, and Kakuza also prominently feature in the annals, along with Busoga College and Ntare School. If you know more about the country's history, you'll know that Busoga produced Milton Obote, independent Uganda's first prime minister and two-term president. The current president, Yoweri Museveni, attended Ntare, where he played cricket. John Nagenda, one of the two Ugandans in the 1975 East Africa World Cup squad, became one of his country's most notable writers, whose rising political presence made him a target for assassination and forced him into exile. Nagenda later served as an adviser to Museveni.

Cricket: A Game for All in Uganda

But it would be wrong to view cricket in Uganda as only a pursuit of the not-so-great and rarely the good. Alongside the elite and their descendants, genuine cricketers also play the game there. They include the oldest man at the T20 World Cup, Frank Nsubuga, who is 43 years young.

Nsubuga made his debut for East and Central Africa against the Netherlands in Kuala Lumpur in March 1997. More than 25 years later, when he was two months away from his 42nd birthday, Nsubuga was on the long-on during a CWC World Cup Challenge League B match against Kenya in Kampala.