Mali women's cricket team suffer record 304-run T20 defeat
Sometimes it’s not about winning or losing; it’s the taking part that counts.
That’s certainly the mantra you suspect is being adopted by the Mali Women’s T20 team after a run of record-breaking defeats in the Kwibuka Women's Twenty20 Tournament taking place in the Rwandan capital Kigali City.
In their latest outing, Mali’s opponents Uganda racked up an incredible 314 from their innings with the loss of just two wickets in 20 overs.
The remarkable score eclipsed the previous T20 women’s highest total set by England against South Africa in 2018 by 64 runs.
Mali’s response was timid to say the least as they were bowled out for just 10 runs in 11 overs, giving Uganda a record victory margin of 304.
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Somehow, Mali’s 10 runs scored seemed to be an improvement on the 6 they scored in their 10-wicket defeat against the host nation in their opening match - the lowest score in a women’s T20 match.
Mali’s second match saw them register just 11 runs in another 10-wicket defeat to Tanzania.
The sequence of results leaves the West African side with the three lowest ever scores in the short-form version of International Women’s cricket.
With the defeats to Rwanda to Tanzania coming after each side reached their respective set targets after just four balls each, Mali also have the unwanted record of having surrendered defeat with 116 balls remaining - the largest margin of defeat by this particular metric - twice!
Mali face all three sides again hoping to improve on their disappointing displays in the competition so far.