Leemisa Thuseho
RISING Star Cricket Club were on Sunday crowned the champions of the 2021 Lesotho Cricket Association (LCA) T20 tournament at the Lesotho High School grounds.
Rising Star beat Lankasia Cricket Club by 25 runs after recording 142 runs for eight wickets against Lankasia’s 117 runs for six wickets.
Lankasia were the first to book a place in the finals last month after clocking 205 runs for seven wickets against Linare’s 93 runs for 10 wickets. On the other hand, Rising Star reached the final recording 113 runs for four wickets over Hlotse 11’s 112 runs for nine wickets.
Rising Star deputy captain, Patel Sarfaraj, told the Lesotho Times this week that they were happy to accomplish their goal of winning the tournament.
“We are very happy to have won the tournament as that is what we were fighting for,” Sarfaraj said.
“However, it was not an easy game. Our opponents were tough but our bowlers did a good job by bowling in right areas with good length.”
The tournament had one group with five teams from Leribe and another with five from Maseru. Both finalists came from the Maseru group.
Getting into the final, Sarfaraj said they knew that Lankasia would go all out to revenge having lost to Rising Star in the group stages.
“We beat them in the group and were expecting a different game in the final. They were definitely tough and they gave us something to worry about. We had hoped our score to be over 170 but they restricted us to 142.
“However, our bowlers did a good job and Lankasia only managed 117 runs.”
On his part Lankasia deputy captain, Mohammed Inshaf, said Rising Star’s win was well-deserved having won all their games throughout the tournament.
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“The final was tough. However, we must improve our batting. We bowled well but our batting was poor. I congratulate the winners because they deserved the victory having won all their games throughout the tournament,” Inshaf said.
