The World T20 2024 will be played in June 2024. The tournament will have 20 teams and the road to the World T20 2024 is nearing its completion now. As of now, 18 teams have qualified for the event while the battle for the final 2 spots is going on in Namibia at the moment.
The final 2 teams in the event will be from Africa after the conclusion of World T20 qualifiers of the Africa region. While many believed that Zimbabwe was a favourite team to qualify for the event, Uganda had other plans. On 26th November 2023, Uganda managed to pull off an upset against Zimbabwe in the qualifiers.
In the 11th Match of the ICC Men’s T20 World Cup Africa Region Qualifiers, Zimbabwe batted first and posted 136 on the board. Sikandar Raza top scored with 48 while Dinesh Nakrani of Uganda picked three wickets. During the chase, Uganda were 12/2 at one point, but then they came back strongly and chased down the target with 5 balls to spare. Riazat Ali Shah top-scored for Uganda with 42(28).
Interestingly, the top scorer of Uganda in their historic win was a Pakistani. Riazat Ali Shah, the 25-year-old batter was born in Gilgit Pakistan. He has featured in over 50 T20I Matches for Uganda.
Not only this was the first win for Uganda against a Test Playing Nation in International Cricket, but this was also the first time that they were playing against a Test Playing Nation. If they get more opportunities to play against the top sides, then definitely they will pose more and more threats to the top sides.
As of now, Zimbabwe is placed 4th in the points table of ICC Men’s T20 World Cup Africa Region Qualifiers. Zimbabwe have won only one game out of the three that they have played.
They were defeated by Namibia and Uganda, while their sole win was against Tanzania. The top 3 spots in the table are occupied by Namibia, Kenya, and Uganda respectively.
Namibia and Kenya have played 3 matches each and are undefeated while Uganda have won 2 out of their 3 games. The group matches of Africa Region Qualifiers will conclude on 30th November 2023. The top 2 teams will make it to the World T20 2024.
Zimbabwe is in a difficult position now. Every next game is a must-win for them now. They had already failed to make it to the ODI World Cup 2023 and now they are on the brink of not making it to the 20 Team World T20 2024.