Thursday fixtures Rwanda v Uganda (Gahanga Cricket Stadium) Brazil v Nigeria (Gahanga Cricket Stadium) Kenya v Botswana (IPRC Cricket Oval) Hosts Rwanda and Uganda are Thursday, June 9, going head to head in a match that will officially open the eighth edition of Kwibuka Women’s T20 tournament running in Kigali. The tournament will run through June 19. The opening match will be played at Gahanga International Cricket Stadium, one of the two venues that will host the ten-day showpiece alongside IPRC-Kigali Cricket Oval. Leonard Nhamburo’s Rwandan side return to action targeting to finally use the home advantage and win the tournament for a first time since its inception in 2014. No slight changes were made to the squad that won the NCF Women’s T20 International Tournament 2022 in April and, according to skipper Marie Diane Bimenyimana, there is a positive environment inside the team’s camp that they can add this year’s title for Kwibuka to the silverware they won in Nigeria two months ago. “We’ve been preparing for this tournament from the beginning of this year and we were able to play enough warm up matches throughout the past few months. I am confident the trophy will stay home this time round,” Bimenyimana told journalists during a pre-tournament press briefing. Head coach Nhamburo echoed that the team he has at his disposal has what it takes to win this year’s Kwibuka tourney. “Last year was my very first time coaching in this tournament and this time I know each and every player. If you look at the current squad, there is a mixture of experienced players and youngsters coming in. That also gives us an advantage to win this tournament,” he said. On the eve of the tournament, players and coaching staffs of all teams visited the Kigali Genocide Memorial to pay tribute to the over one million victims of the 1994 Genocide against the Tutsi.
