ICC Trophy Player of the Day: Kenneth Kamyuka (Uganda)

It wasn't just that it was a century. Or that it was only the third three-figure score of the 2001 ICC Trophy tournament. Or even that it came at a ground that has tended to offer good encouragement to both fast and slow bowlers through most of the warmup and tournament matches to date.

Instead, there were many things that were extraordinary about Kenneth Kamyuka's score of 100 for Uganda in the crucial Division Two contest against Malaysia at Eglinton Flats today.

When the powerfully built fast bowler took up his role as a number ten batsman thirty-five overs into the match, his team was in more than just an idle spot of bother. Eight wickets had just crashed for thirty-five runs and a great start from their upper order was being squandered by the Africans. Moreover, their dream of translating excellent lead-up form into a victory over the side expected to provide them with the main opposition in their group was rapidly turning sour.

But, by the time that he left the crease just over an hour later, another 124 runs had been thunderously added in a liaison with Richard Mwami that completely changed the complexion of the game ... and quite possibly Uganda's entire tournament as well.

"I definitely had to go after the bowlers," said Kamyuka with a smile after his heroics.

"It wouldn't have made any sense for me just to have stuck around for another fifteen overs just to score thirty runs or so.

"Defending 150 against such opposition would have been very very risky but 200-plus always gave us a good chance.

By any measure, Kamyuka's century was sensational. Achieved from only fifty-four deliveries - the fifty-fourth being the very last of the Ugandan innings itself - it was based on a phenomenal display of controlled hitting. Although the majority of his runs came from shots powered down the ground, his blows were littered to almost all of its parts. Just for good measure, several carried well out of the field of play itself, eight sixes complementing a quartet of fours.

"I'm not always comfortable against the medium pacers but I'm very happy looking the spinners.

"Although Richard is a senior player in our team, I asked him to give me the strike against the slow bowlers. He refused me initially but I insisted!"

For his home club in Uganda, Kamyuka is used as a number six batsman in something of an all-rounder's role. The presence within this current national team of an excellent array of strokemakers has, by necessity, forced him down the order for much of his representative career. But don't expect him to be batting so low for too much longer.