Over 250 secondary school students from across the country are participating in the Rwanda Cricket Association (RCA) inter-secondary schools cricket tournament that resumes today after four games were played on Saturday.

Effotec and Gasogi registered victories on opening day in the girls’ category while Groupe Scolaire Giporoso and EST Gasogi emerged winners in the boys’ grouping in the tournament that attracted 18 schools, 10 boys and eight girls with 14 players.

Today’s games will be played at Kagarama SS, GS Ndera, GS Giporoso, Lycee De Kigali and IPRC TSS cricket grounds.

According to RCA manager Joshua Mwanja, the annual tournament is meant to prepare the U-19 girls’ and boys’ national teams for upcoming continental tournaments.

"This tournament offers an opportunity to the young players and gives them exposure. It is an opportunity to compete,” explained Mwanja.

Mwanja revealed that there has been a huge improvement in the quality of matches. "We saw good performances at the games played last weekend as compared to other years. We can attribute this to regular coaching in schools because we recruited coaches to every school that is in the competition,” he said,

National team players, who earlier this year gained their level two coaching certificates, have taken over cricket coaching in secondary schools.

He added that after the competition, the best players will be placed into four teams that will play in the youth league. This will be 60 students who are between 17 and 18 years and will make up the U-19 national teams for next year.

The U-19 girls’ team will play in the Pepsi ICC Africa U-19 Girls Division One tournament in Tanzania from December 5-7 and the Pepsi ICC Africa U-19 boys’ Division Two tournament scheduled to take place in Johannesburg, South Africa in April 2016.

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