Sierra Leone

In April 2025, the Ladies Patriots travelled to Botswana for the BCA Kalahari Women's T20 International Tournament and won every one of their seven matches, taking the final against the hosts. A month or so later the same side reached the final of the ICC Women's T20 World Cup Africa Qualifier Division Two, where Rwanda beat them to the promotion place.

That men's programme, run by the Sierra Leone Cricket Association (rebranded Cricket Sierra Leone), dates its local founding to 15 November 1942, though international recognition came much later: affiliate status with the International Cricket Council arrived around 2000, associate status not until June 2017. Between those two dates lies the team's best remembered spell. Playing in the West African Quadrangular against Nigeria, Ghana and the Gambia, Sierra Leone took the regional championship in 2000 and held it through 2001, and added the Sani Abacha Trophy outright in 2000. Progress since has been steadier than spectacular: second place in the ICC World Cricket League Africa Region Division Three in 2009 brought promotion, and a third-place finish at the 2023 ACA Africa T20 Cup group stage followed a run to the qualifying final.

Both teams play out of the Kingtom Cricket Oval in Freetown, cricket's home in the city since 1922. There is no grandstand to speak of and no listed capacity — a hard red dirt outfield, a cement pitch laid with astro turf. It is not a ground built to impress visitors from Lagos or Accra; it is simply where the game in Sierra Leone has always been played.