Whilst the German women's team are currently playing in the Kwibuka women's cricket tournament in Rwanda, their male counterparts are in the more familiar surroundings of the Bayer Uerdingen Cricket Ground in Krefeld as they hosted a T20I tri-series that also involved Austria and Sweden.

After a round-robin stage which saw Sweden lose all four of their matches (although their defeats against Austria were closely fought affairs, the margins of victory being three runs and one run) and Germany and Austria beat each other, the hosts and Austria met in today's final.

The visitors won the toss and chose to bat first, initially finding runs hard to come by as they lost three wickets in the first six overs. A recovery of sorts was led by Armaan Randhawa and Aqib Iqbal who put on 51 for the fifth wicket before the former was out for 31 in the penultimate over of the innings.

Iqbal finished the innings unbeaten on 42 as Austria scored 122-7 from their 20 overs. Walter Behr, who made his debut in this tri-series and looks to be a useful medium pacer, took 3-17 to take his tri-series tally to nine wickets at an average of under 10.

Sachin Mandy top scored for Germany with 34 in their reply, but Austria were just about on top when he was the fifth wicket to fall in the twelfth over, the score at that stage being 61. But the middle order rallied with Walter Behr scoring 22 and Muslim Yar an unbeaten 24 to help the home team record a three wicket win with two balls to spare.

As with many series going on in Europe at the moment, this was part of preparation for the upcoming European sub-regional qualifying for the 2024 T20 World Cup. Not for Germany though as they have a bye to next year's regional final after successfully reaching the global qualifier for this year's main event.

Sweden and Austria are involved though, with both travelling to Finland next month. Sweden are in Group A of qualifying which, in addition to the hosts, will also feature Croatia, Cyprus, Greece, Isle of Man, Italy, Romania, Serbia, Sweden and Turkey. Austria will be in Group B alongside Bulgaria, Czech Republic, Estonia, France, Guernsey, Luxembourg, Norway, Slovenia and Switzerland.