Kenya women cricket team skipper Margaret Banja has described the team’s batting performance against Namibia in their first ICC World Cup qualifiers as “one of the worst in a long time.
Kenya were shot down for 78 in pursuit of 117 with only three players—Mary Wambui (10), Margaret Banja (12) and Daisy Wairimu (18)— scoring double digits at Takashinga Cricket ground in Harare.
“This is one of our worst performances with the bat for a long time. We didn’t expect this and you have to give credit to the Namibia bowlers. It was a magnificent effort by them,” said Banja after a disappointing outing in her maiden ICC showpiece as a captain. She said the Kenyan batters failed to apply themselves on what was a good wicket as their Namibian rivals capitalised on the situation.
“This is a good lesson for us. At times, you need to absorb pressure and we only have ourselves to blame for the debacle. Things were never good from the beginning and we should blame ourselves for that,” she said. The Kenyans lost their first wicket in the fourth over with the board on 14 and lost three more for 15 runs.
They then lost three others for 17 runs before Adhiambo and Wairimu held briefly with an eighth-wicket stand of 30 runs to get the scores to 76.
The skipper said the poor shot selection was the reason behind Kenya’s terrible showing. “We played some bad shots as well. It’s always challenging when the ball is swinging,” said Banja. “Good teams usually keep ticking the boxes and today we didn’t tick the right boxes,” she added. Kenya play Sierra Leone in the next match.
