Uganda Cricket Association (UCA) has confirmed the schedule for the 2019 season.
The season will kick off with the T20 Cup on Saturday, February 16 to allow national team players to prepare for the upcoming World Cup qualifiers that will be played May in Kampala.
The 50-over league will be played after the World Cup qualifiers and then close the season with another T20 tournament.
Uganda Cricket board also released some new rules to guide clubs during the season, most notably, no club will be allowed to have more than three national team players in their matchday XI. However, clubs are allowed to have more than three national team players in their team squads for the season but can only field three on match day.
“A maximum of 3 National Team players will be permitted on the field on Match Day,” reads rule number sixteen of the National Twenty20 Divisional Championships.
This new rule will mostly affect clubs in Division I, especially back-to-back league champions and last year’s T20 Cup winners Aziz Damani who have over eight players on their roaster.
It’s no surprise that Aziz Damani’s team manager Siva Koti is furious and says the side is open to challenging UCA’s decision legally.
“We are not happy with the timing of the decision,” Koti said as quoted by Cricket Uganda.
“There are less than 10 days left to the start of the season which makes it impossible for us to change our team.
“We signed players as early as June last year and even paid all of them their sign on fees. Unless the association is willing to pay us our money back we shall challenge the decision legally,” he added.
The essence of the new rule is to have national team players to be evenly distributed amongst the local clubs to allow them to compete against each other