Nine schools competed in the inaugural Kinihira inter-schools cricket tournament held at Sorwathe Ground on Sunday.

The teams were split into four groups including junior boys, junior girls, senior girls and senior boys and they played in a round robin format.

Kinihira and Mutara primary schools won the junior boys and girls categories respectively with eight points each after winning all their games.

In the boys’ senior category, Kinihira SS, Mutara SS and Murambo SS tied on points after winning three games each in the preliminaries and the winner was decided on points with Mutara SS emerging the best with 418 runs, edging Kinihira SS who had 416 runs while Murambo SS settled for third place with 396 runs.

It was the same story in the senior girls’ category as Kinihira SS and Kimiryi SS tied with four points but the latter emerged victorious with 386 runs as Kinihira SS settled for second with 342 runs.

"We were treated to a special day of cricket with a couple of parents and school heads watching. The players enjoyed the day’s cricket and we look forward to hosting this event next year,” said the Northern region cricket coach, Landry Rurangwa.

Rwanda Cricket Association (RCA) general manager Joshua Mwanja said, "We entered into partnership with Sorwathe Ltd in February 2014 to promote cricket in Rulindo district. Since then with the help of Sorwathe, we introduced cricket in 10 schools, trained teachers in umpiring and coaching courses and now they have sponsored this tournament.”

Sorwathe Director General Ltd Rohith Peiris said, "We saw some excellent cricket played throughout the day by the youngsters. This is encouraging to see that after one year and a half we have very talented kids playing cricket in the region.”

Sorwathe has plans to set up a club to compete in the national cricket league.