Cricket: 2021 ICC Men's T20 World Cup Africa qualifier   Seychelles selection fail to progress to regional final |29 October 2021

The Seychelles selection

With only two wins in six games, the Seychelles cricket selection are out of the qualifiers for the2021 ICC Men's T20 World Cup.

Playing in the sub regional Africa A qualifier at the Gahanga International Cricket Stadium in Kigali, Rwanda, captain Kaushal Patel and company could only register wins against Lesotho by 6 wickets (score card: Lesotho 131/8 in 20 overs and Seychelles 132/4 in 16.2 overs) and Eswatini by 7 wickets (score card: Eswatini 128/7 in 16 overs and Seychelles 130/3 in 15.2 overs).

The selection lost to Ghana by 9 wickets (score card: Seychelles 95 in 20 overs and Ghana 96/1 in 10.1 overs), to hosts Rwanda by 78 runs (score card: Rwanda 196/4 in 20 overs and Seychelles 23/5 in 9 overs), to Malawi by 21 runs (score card: Malawi 142/2 in 20 overs and Seychelles 121 in 19.3 overs), and to Uganda by 95 runs (score card: Uganda 164/5 in 20 overs and Seychelles 69/9 in 20 overs).

They finished fifth with four points in the seven-team standings dominated by Uganda who claimed victories in all their six games played for a maximum 12 points. Uganda and group runners-up Ghana (five wins and a loss) will progress to the regional final where they will meet Kenya and Nigeria, the two highest ranked teams as of January 1, 2020, and who progressed directly to the final. The other two teams who will join the four finalists will be known by November 7 when matches in group B end.

It was in April 2018 that the ICC granted full international status to Twenty20 men's matches played between member sides from January 1, 2019 onwards.

Therefore, all matches in the regional qualifiers were played as Twenty20 Internationals (T20Is).

The Africa qualifier started with a sub-regional qualifier consisting of two groups, with the top two teams in each group progressing to the regional final.

The sub-regional tournament was scheduled to take place in South Africa from April 27 to May 3, 2020, however, on March 24, 2020, the ICC confirmed that all ICC qualifying events scheduled to take place before June 30, 2020 had been postponed due to the Covid-19 pandemic.

In December 2020, the ICC updated the qualification pathway following the disruption from the pandemic.

In March 2021, the groups A and B qualifiers were postponed again, with them both being moved back to October.

In July 2021, the RCA announced that the ICC had confirmed Rwanda as the host nation for all of the matches in the Africa qualifier.

The Seychelles team players who competed in the qualifiers are: Kalvin Deso, Lalji Harji Hirani, Islam Md Mazharul, Krishna Naidoo, Byron Pual, Nil Rao, Rukmal Samarathunga, Raja Mohan Shanmugasundraram, KaushalKumar Patel, Rana Rocket Shohal, Udhayan Sivakumar, Themeera Madusanka Stephen Koralalage Don, Rajiv Thiyagarajan, Mukesh Vadodariya, Govind Kerai, Abhijit Pedenekar, Murji Ramji Shiyani, Yakesh Annand Subramanian and Deepak Radhakrishnan.

The officials were: Patrick Thomas (team manager), Santhosh Kundar and Vijay Hirani.

Compiled by Gerard Govinden