Kenya under-19s went down to their fourth straight defeat in the ongoing ICC U19 Cricket World Cup Global qualifiers when they were comprehensible beaten by the USA U19s by a margin of 130 runs at the Bready cricket ground in Co Tyrone, Northern Ireland.
Kenya won the toss for this match and decided to field first. USA U19s started strongly buoyed by the best batsman of the tournament Steven Taylor, incidentally Kenya boast of the second best in Duncan Allan, both these batsmen have scored over 300 runs so far. Ironically both these teams are out of the qualifying places with Kenya in the 7th position and USA lying 8th.
Taylor had began the game hunt for USA in typical fashion sending Martin Ndandason, who struugled with the new ball for Kenya, for a six and a four inside the four opening overs. Allan however checked the danger man when he had him hitting at a good length ball to be caught at mid-off by Raj Shikotra for 17 runs.
And he was soon to be followed by skipper Cameron Mirza who was trapped for 13 runs by Raj Savala. But a 106-run partnership between Abhijit Joshi and Gregory Sewdial lifted the Americans from 46 for 2 to 152 for 3 when Joshi was caught by Irfan Karim off Emmanuel Ringera for 41 and 7 runs later Sewdial was fell victim to mix-up and was run out for 68. USA did recover to post a target of 239 for the Kenyans.
The East Africans have developed a habit of losing wickets in clusters and when they found the going tough at 35 for the loss of five wickets, coach Joseph Angara did fear the worst and eventually they folded for 108, despite Allan’s firefighting inning of 46.
Earlier on Ringera was the pick of the bowlers when he accounted for four of USA’s dismissals while conceding 50 off his 9 nine overs. The Africans slip to 9th in the table with this loss and remain with three fixtures in which to salvage their pride against Afghanistan, Scotland and Namibia.
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