Marylebone Cricket Club commences its overseas touring programme with a men's tour of Rwanda in 2024

MCC's men's squad departed for Rwanda, marking the start of their first overseas tour of 2024.

On Tuesday morning, 20 February, a 13-man squad departed from Lord's to travel to Kigali, the capital of the country. All of the Club's matches will take place on the tour in Kigali.

The tour has been organised in conjunction with the MCC Foundation (MCCF). The MCCF works with around 100,000 young cricketers across East Africa each year.

In the coming days, MCCF members will visit Rwanda to provide equipment and coaching to beneficiaries, alongside the MCC squad. They will then proceed to Uganda to continue their program of providing opportunities to young people through cricket.

MCC's first match of the tour is on Saturday against Rwanda Under-19s at the Gahanga International Cricket Stadium. This stadium will host all of the Club's matches during the tour.

Rwanda will play T20 Internationals from 2021 after becoming an ICC Associate Nation in 2017. They played against a Full Member for the first time last year when they faced Zimbabwe.

Abeed Janmohamed will captain MCC. He is a wicketkeeper-batter who played for Kenya in the Under-19 World Cup and their senior side in the ICC Intercontinental Cup.

The squad includes several players with first-class experience, such as former Worcestershire offspinner Shaftab Khalid, Oliver Bocking, Pieter de Vos Daneel, and Jonathan Dewes.

The rest of the squad consists of players from the National Counties system and various ECB Premier League teams. This will provide a high standard of opposition, including Rwanda's senior, 'A' and Under-19 sides.

He sits on MCC's Cricket Committee and has represented British Universities as a wicketkeeper-batter. Dr Samir Pathak, a Full Member of the MCC and a Trustee of the MCCF, will be the Tour Manager for the trip.

In addition to the playing and coaching aspects of the tour, there will be a significant visit to the Kigali Genocide Memorial. This memorial is a place of remembrance and learning that honours the victims of the Rwandan genocide that occurred three decades ago.

The squad for this tour is: Samir Pathak (Tour Manager), Oliver Bocking, Jed Cawkwell, Pieter Daneel, Jonathan Dewes, Darren Eckford, Ben Figueiredo, Abeed Janmohamed, Shaftab Khalid, Scott O’Leary, Ben Shepperson, Thomas Simeons, Ashley Sivarajah, Michael Wood, Vinoj Srinivasan (Umpire).