Daily Times

On a sunny morning at the main cricket oval in Kampala, members of the Ugandan national men’s team are being put through their paces by their new head coach. The Cricket Cranes — clad in their vivid red kit — are training hard for their first ever Twenty20 World Cup, a “dream come true” in a nation where cricket is overshadowed by football as the most popular sport.

But they have a tough road ahead in the tournament, which is being jointly hosted by the United States and West Indies and runs from June 1 to June 29. Among their opponents are New Zealand and West Indies, as well as Afghanistan and Papua New Guinea, with the fixtures being held in Guyana and Trinidad and Tobago. Time is not on their side — it was barely a month ago that the Uganda Cricket Association named Indian former first-class cricketer Abhay Sharma as the new head coach of the men’s national team.