Capricorn Eagles takes second place

Pre-tournament favourites the Capricorn Eagles was trumped by a spirited Kenyan women’s team in the final of the Kwibuka Women’s T20 tournament at The Gahanga in Kigali Rwanda.

The Kenyan women has never beaten Namibia before in a T20 game but on the crucial day their batters made light work of the chase with some good attacking display to bundle the Namibia women out for just 69 to win the final of the tournament by 7 runs to register their fourth Kwibuka T20 title.
The Capricorn Eagles thumped Nigeria by 91 runs in the semi-finals on Friday but unfortunately on the day of the final, things didn’t happen for them and as they came unstuck against a high-spirited Kenyan team.
Namibia had some impressive victories during the group stages as they also beat Kenya by 36 runs in their first encounter.
The coach of the Capricorn Eagles Namibian women’s team Francois van der Merwe said the girls competed well in the Kwibuka Tournament with great on field skills and played exceptional cricket in the first five games. It’s unfortunate that the women could not win the tournament but it was an all-round great experience for the team.
Van der Merwe said ” Despite the defeat, the whole experience was a big learning curve and we haven’t played international cricket for the last 18 months, so to go back into a competitive tournament like this was really good and as a coach I’m really happy where we are with our skill levels. Unfortunately, it’s just those big matches that we have to pull off when we get into the finals again.”
“So overall I’m very satisfied, there are very good youngsters coming through the system as well and we just have to focus a bit more on our batting because we want to get that aspect of our game much stronger. But we’ve got a lot of good youngsters coming through, so the future is very bright for Namibian women’s cricket” Van der Merwe said Namibian players excelled in the individual statistics for the tournament, with Namibia’s Victoria Hamunyela finishing second with 15 wickets at an average of 4,53 while Sune Wittmann emerged as the top batter with 167 runs at an average of 55,66 and a top score of 93 not out.
The Walvis Bay born Hamunyela, only 18-years-old, made a great impact, taking a wicket with her very first ball, and is one of the exciting talents that emerged at the tournament as she and Sune Wittmann, Adri Van der Merwe, Yasmeen Khan and Kayleen Green made the team of the tournament.
Score in brief: Namibia 69/10 in 15.5 overs (Sylvia Shihepo 16*; Sarah Wetoto 6/16) lost to Kenya 72/3 in 11 overs (Margaret Ngoche 37*; Victoria Hamunyela 1/4) by seven wickets.
The hosts Rwanda overcome the Nigerian challenge to finish third in Kwibuka 2021 on the back of performances Gisele Ishimwe and Cathia Uwamahoro with the bat and collective bowling effort went past Nigeria to win the third place.
Rwanda 112/5 off 20 overs (Gisele Ishimwe 39, Cathia Uwamahoro 35*; Mary Desmond 1/17) beat Nigeria 104/6 off 20 overs (Kehinde Abdulquadri 31, Blessing Etim 25; Marie Bimenyimana 2/21) by 8 runs. – icc.com