Martin Suji’s men were back to winning ways on Monday, November 21, as they comfortably beat Malawi by 41 runs at Gahanga Cricket Stadium to keep their hopes of qualifying to the next stages of the ICC Men’s T20 World Cup Africa Group A qualifier alive.

The hosts had to bounce back from shock defeat against Kenya on Sunday, November 20, the likes of right-arm medium fast Wilson Niyitanga and South Africa-based Emmanuel Sebareme put up impressive displays to overcome the Malawians’ threat.

Niyitanga put in a play-of-the match performance as he contributed 46 of Rwanda’s 159 total runs in the first innings after they elected to bat first.

Malawi had to chase the score with 160 runs for them to be able to win the game that would have seen them jump to second. But eight of their players were eliminated with three more overs to go by the time the visitors only managed 97 runs.

The DL (Duckworth Lewis) Method decided the winner of the game in favor of Rwanda after the match had to stop due to rainfall.

It was Rwanda’s third victory of the qualifying campaign. The victory saw them go second with six points, two points shy of table leaders Kenya who have not lost a single game yet. Rwanda, however, have one game in hand and winning it would increase their chances of finishing at the summit of their group at the end of the qualifier.

In other results, Kenya kept their unbeaten run with a convincing victory over Lesotho by 167 runs in another game that took place in Gahanga while St Helene won their first game of their qualifying campaign as they beat Seychelles by two runs. The game took place at IPRC-Kigali.

Rwanda will have a break on Tuesday and Wednesday as they prepare for key tests against Seychelles and Mali when they return to action Thursday. Both fixtures will be played at IPRC-Kigali.