Today: Rwanda v England – a game no one expected any time soon
Fledgling cricketing nation have defied the odds simply by reaching Women’s U-19s World Cup,
‘Our ground was built by a British charity. Our girls have grown up idolising people like Heather Knight’
There is a special game of cricket today in Potchefstroom laced with more meaning than just points up for grabs in the inaugural Women’s Under-19s T20 World Cup.
England play Rwanda for the first time in an international fixture, a remarkable step for the former Belgian colony, where cricket was introduced only in 2000 by returning refugees from Uganda and Kenya, who brought it to their homeland when they began the rebuilding process after the 1994 genocide.
The 100 days of violence that left thousands dead happened long before any of the players on the field today were born, but their success continues to help the healing process and put the sport on the map in a country with no cricketing heritage.
Already, they are making their mark. To just qualify for this tournament was heralded as one of Rwanda’s great sporting achievements. When they beat Zimbabwe – a country with a much deeper cricket pedigree – by 39 runs on Tuesday, it was the most significant result in Rwanda’s history. Medium-pacer and captain Henriette Ishimwe justified her growing reputation with four wickets in four balls to complete the victory.
Cricket in Rwanda has grown significantly over the past decade and players such as Ishimwe now have a real future in the sport thanks, in part, to help from the UK, and even Telegraph readers.
“It is going to mean a lot to play against England. English people have been the biggest supporters of Rwanda cricket,” Emmanuel Byiringiro, general manager of Rwanda cricket, says. “Our ground was built by a British charity. Our girls have grown up idolising people like Heather Knight. Nobody expected us to play England any time soon. Perhaps it was more than coincidence that we were drawn together in the same group.”
On my first trip to Kigali in 2016, I was taken to a muddy, scruffy field on the outskirts of the city that had spectacular views across the Kigali hills, and a young Englishman told me of his dream of turning the patch of land into an international cricket ground.
The Rwanda national team, such as they were, played at the Kicukiro Oval, which was the scene of one of the most notorious massacres of the genocide. Players would tell how they would occasionally stumble across bone fragments while playing cricket. The pitch was matted, they could bowl from only one end and the nets were falling apart. Rwanda cricket needed help, badly. Alby Shale was the head of a charity, the Rwanda Cricket Stadium Foundation – later Cricket Builds Hope. His father, Christopher, was a cricket fan who had visited Rwanda and wanted to make a difference. Christopher died in 2011 but his son picked up the mantle and raised more than £1.7 million to fund cricket and build Gahanga Stadium on the site of that scraggy bit of land he showed me in 2016. It was opened in 2017 thanks to the money raised – donations flowed in from Telegraph readers – by Cricket Builds Hope, with a gala weekend that included Michael Vaughan, Sam Billings and Herschelle Gibbs playing an exhibition match on the first grass pitch in Rwanda. Now there are 24 clubs in Rwanda, with more than 30,000 regular players, and cricket is played in 100 schools. All clubs have a women’s team.
The links with the UK continue. The Lord’s Taverners have donated much-needed kit. The cricket charity, Cricket Without Boundaries, has been instrumental in spreading the sport. Knight, the England captain, is one of its patrons and has coached in Kigali.
The women’s team have quickly outstripped the men in terms of progress, too, the gap being smaller between associates and some full-member nations.
“Cricket has come a long way since we started in 2000. When we started the women’s programme in 2007 we wanted to give a chance to the girls to play the game,” Byiringiro says. “From there on, we saw potential. In the last four years, we have invested a lot. The Gahanga Stadium has boosted the game, we are able to train in world-class facilities, play on good surfaces and attract a lot of teams to come and play in Kigali. It has exposed our girls to international cricket. It has helped them play at the highest level.
“From what we are seeing, the fruits are now showing with the under-19s qualifying for the World Cup and rubbing shoulders with big names.
“We promote women in all aspects of the economy; government. We look for equal rights and cricket is no different. We are seeing more growth and through the performance of the women’s teams people are aware of the game and creating heroes in our girls. It is making it easy for us to grow the game now and spread it in areas we have not reached.”
England will surely be too strong for Rwanda but the result matters less. Just being there is a big win for Rwanda cricket.