Rwanda seeks two cricket facilities to attract international tournaments

The Rwanda Cricket Association (RCA) wants to have two more standard facilities to be able to host international Cricket tournaments on an annual basis. Rwanda hosted an international Cricket tournament for the first time in 2018 when East African countries namely Kenya, Uganda, Tanzania and Rwanda locked horns in the T20 Africa B Qualifiers held at Gahanga Cricket Stadium. The International Cricket Council (ICC) hailed the host nation for hosting excellent and successful cricket tournaments besides impressive hospitality shown to the tournament participants. The International Cricket Council at the time assured the local Cricket governing body (RCA) that they would be given chances to host more international cricket tournaments if more cricket facilities that fulfil international standards are established. With Gahanga Cricket Stadium the only international facility that the federation has in its ranks, upgrade works on the IPRC-Kigali Cricket ground are ongoing and will be ready for use by July this year. Once completed, RCA will still need two more international cricket facilities to host international cricket tournaments on an annual basis. The federation was, according to RCA Secretary General, Julius Mbaraga, among the projects presented to Sports Minister Aurore Mimosa Munyangaju, when she paid a tour visit to Gahanga Cricket Stadium on Monday, March 29. Mbaraga told Times Sport that having enough facilities fits very well with the Ministry of Sports and Rwanda Development Board (RDB)’s sports tourism projects. “Much as we have Gahanga Cricket Stadium while also upgrading the IPRC-Kigali Cricket oval, we feel that we still need two more cricket facilities to help us attract more international tournaments but even, more importantly, to further strengthen the game in general,” he said. “We are engaging the Ministry [of Sports] to see whether we can get two more cricket grounds and talks are still ongoing and we hope they will advise on the best way forward,” he said. Extending facilities in schools Cricket is relatively a new sport in Rwanda and, had it not been for the Coronavirus outbreak, RCA would have celebrated the 20th anniversary last year since the sport arrived in Rwanda in 2000. The federation is increasing the awareness of the sport, most importantly in schools, across the country as part of its development initiative to extend the game to a bigger and younger community. The sport so far has a presence in 100 secondary schools in 17 districts across the country and the federation’s target is that, by 2025, the presence will have extended in all 30 districts. “For us to get where we want, we need numbers, we need more Rwandans to play the sport so that we have a bigger pool to choose from because the wider the pool the better players we get. We are closely working with the Federation of Sports in Secondary Schools to facilitate us to even reach more schools,” he said. While RCA shows commitment to take and improve the game in more schools, Mbaraga claimed that some schools have been a bit reluctant to provide land for the federation to upgrade and develop grounds for Cricket. “It has been one of our biggest frustrations. We don’t want 100% support from them, we just want to secure space and then we can raise funds for ourselves and do the development of that space. What they [government] need to do is to help us identify and give us space where we can put those facilities,” he said. The federation hopes things might change, based on recent positive discussions with the Ministry of Sports, after Minister Munyangaju got impressed by the federation’s agenda.