National cricket team earned their first victory of their tour of Oman, beating Jersey by seven wickets in their fourth match of the ICC Cricket World Challenge League ‘B’ match at Al Amerat, Muscat.
The win was engineered by an unbeaten century stand between Rakep Patel and Rushab Patel and was the first for the Kenyan team in seven outing since landing in the Middle East country three weeks ago.
The win came a day after their third match against Bermuda was washed out. Needing 234 runs for victory, Kenya easily reached their target with 22 balls in hand with Rakep contributing 101 and Rushab Patel posting 99.
The two linked up after Kenya once again found themselves in familiar situation in the middle at 44 for 3 after 11 overs.
Julius Sumerauer had led the Kenya’s staggering start with the wickets of Naman Patel (1), Dhiren Gondaria (20) and Irfan Karim (15) falling to Harrison Carlyon.
Rakep and Rushab retrieved the innings for the struggling Kenyan side as the duo put up an unbeaten stand of 195 runs, which saw both batsmen register milestones. Rakep reached his second List ‘A’ ton while Rushab scored his highest international total of 99 runs.
Both batsmen mixed caution with aggression as they razed to their maiden victory in the event that is also being used as the 2023 ICC Cricket World Cup qualifier. Rakep brought up his century with his fourth six of the inning off 106 balls. His knock consisted also eight boundaries.
Rushab, who has been struggling for form for a while faced 121 balls that included seven boundaries and one maximum on his way to 99.
Earlier, after winning the toss, Jersey batsmen got starts but ended up getting out when it was time to accelerate leaving it to sixth wicket pair of Dominic Blampied (43 off 46 balls) and Corry Bisson (58 off 44) to provide some late impetus to the innings.
Jersey got off to a bad start as they lost their opener Nat Watkins (9) in the third over of the inning to Lameck Onyango before Ben Stevens (23) and Calynon (46) put on 55 for the second wicket.
Collins Obuya (1 for 29) and Shem Ngoche (3 for 24) then reduced Jersey to 112 for 4 and then 142 for 5. Blampied and Bisson joined each other at the crease and they retrieved the innings for Jersey as the duo put up an unbeaten partnership of 89 runs. Kenya end their campaign of Pool ‘B’ first round against second-placed Hong Kong tomorrow.
