Leonard Nhamburo will be hoping to help Rwanda women win the Nigeria T20 Invitational Women’s Cricket tournament for the second time in a row.

The weeklong tournament is underway at Tafawa Balewa Square Oval in Lagos, Nigeria, from Sunday March 26 and will run until April 3, with Rwanda set to play their opening game against Ghana on Monday March 27.

Nhamburo guided Rwanda to winning last year’s edition of the six-nation cricket competition and the form that his women have been showing during the training sessions boosted his confidence to achieve the feat again.

"Definitely we are ready, we are the defending champions and our main objective is to go there and retain the trophy,” he told Times Sport before the team left for Lagos for the tournament on Saturday morning.

"We know that every team will be aiming to beat us but we are not under pressure. If you look at the performance our players have been showing in the league, some have proven that they have been to the world cup by merit and that they have got lots of experience. Our performance will even be different from the past years," he added.

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The Zimbabwean-born coach dropped three players who were part of his team that won last year’s edition and added some three new players hoping to reinforce his squad.

Geovanis Uwase and Rosine Uwera are among the three players who were handed a selection in the national team, replacing Cathia Uwamahoro and Antoinette Uwimbabazi who were dropped.

"Those are the two new players in the team. I am pretty sure that they will deliver,” Nhamburo said.

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The tactician encouraged the dropped players to "continue to work hard because we have lots of games coming up and the door is not closed to them.”