‘Flexible’ Hong Kong aim to overcome organisational chaos in key Uganda cricket tournament
City team at start of 3-year quest to recapture their ODI status face hosts on Sunday following one win, one defeat from opening two matches
Hong Kong have had to be “open-minded and flexible” to navigate the organisational chaos that is affecting their critical Challenge League B campaign in Uganda.
The tournament represents the first leg of the city team’s three-year quest to recapture their one-day-international status. Hong Kong were indebted to a fabulous Babar Hayat century for a tense three-wicket victory over Bahrain in their opening match, after Yasim Murtaza claimed four cheap wickets with the ball, but they suffered a bruising 155-run loss to Italy on Saturday.
Hong Kong were in action against the hosts on Sunday.
After preparing for the competition in Cape Town, to which they travelled after competing in the Oman-hosted T20 Emerging Teams Asia Cup, Hong Kong arrived in Uganda to discover their training venue was saturated.
Simon Willis, the Hong Kong head coach, said: “The first couple of days were fairly disorganised. It is the back end of the rainy season … when we went to our training venue, the outfield was under water. There had been a government event on it the previous day and it was clear there had been lorries on the outfield, so it was like a rugby ground.
“We weren’t able to do any fielding, we could only use the middle wicket to throw balls and for the spinners to practise. The seamers couldn’t have a training session.
