Uganda Cricket have responded to this article, link here.

Abram Ndhlovu Mutyagaba was born on the 25th of February 1986 in the Ugandan town of Jinja. On the same day, in the township of Mamelodi northeast of Pretoria, Abram Lepono Ndhlovu was welcomed into the world. So you would think, at least, if you were to go by the online records kept by Cricket Archive and ESPNcricinfo.

Lepono Ndhlovu would go on to forge an solid cricketing career in South Africa as a batsman and occasional keeper, playing age-group cricket for Northerns before making his senior debut in 2005 at the age of 19, and soon establishing himself as a regular in the side. Ndhlovu would continue to turn out for Northerns - with the odd appearance for Titans or Pretoria University - until late 2012, when he moved to KwaZulu-Natal Inland, where he now opens the batting.

Of Mutyagaba, however, nothing further is heard until he makes his debut for his native Uganda at the age of 27, against Papua New Guinea in a warm-up game ahead of the World T20 Qualifier in November of 2013. Mutyagaba captained the side from behind the stumps, batted at four, and made ten runs before being bowled by Chris Amini.

Also earning his first cap for Uganda that day, according to Cricket Archive, was 27 year-old Mpho Mukobe - who likewise fell victim to Amini just after reaching double figures. Mukobe had seemingly kept a similarly low profile prior to his international debut, his only previous appearance of note being for the Rwenzori Warriors two months earlier, having apparently joined the team just in time for the East African Cup final.

Cricinfo's profile for Mukobe is rather more enlightening however, identifying him as Pretoria-born Phillimon Mpho Selowa - another keeper-batsman long active in the Pretoria cricket scene. Already a promising cricketer as a schoolboy at St Albans College, Selowa represented South Africa at under 17 level, and was later a regular fixture in the Northerns line up between 2008 and 2010 before moving to North West, followed by a stint in the UK playing for Stapleton CC, then a return to South Africa and South Western Districts, whom he represented in 2012.

During his time at Northerns, Mukobe (aka Selowa) naturally would have shared a dressing room with Ndhlovu. And indeed a quick glance at their social media profiles suggests the men are good friends. It also of course reveals that Abram Lepono Ndhlovu and Abram Ndhlovu Mutyagaba are one and the same.

Now duplicate player profiles in Cricket Archive or Cricinfo's records are far from unheard of; outside of full member countries lesser-known players occasionally appear several times or not at all, especially when the sometimes ambiguous naming conventions found in Africa or the Subcontinent come into play. What is a little odd, however, is that neither player seems to have used their current, entirely Ugandan-sounding names until they were brought into the Ugandan side under former coach Johannes Rudolph (father of South African international Jacques and Namibian international Gerhard).

Rudolph also has long-standing connections to the Pretoria cricket scene, and was Northerns' Schools and Development Coordinator from 1996 to 2004, when both Selowa and Ndhlovu were playing schools cricket in Pretoria. One might imagine that if Rudolph had been aware of two gifted cricketers of Ugandan extraction playing in Pretoria it would make sense for him to bring them into the team, and perhaps the pair chose to go by their previously unused Ugandan names when playing for their country out of a sense of patriotism.

Maybe.

But other than their newly adopted or rediscovered names, and Ndhlovu's ambiguous birthplace, there seems to be little to tie either player to Uganda except that they now represent the country at cricket. Both players describe themselves online as Pretoria natives, Ndhlovu still plays for KZ-N and Selowa now works at SuperSport, a Johannesburg-based broadcasting company. Given these commitments, together with the fact that the pair are referred to in the Ugandan press as South African-based "mercenaries" with a habit of flying in at the last minute for tournaments, it is difficult to imagine how either could possibly have satisfied the stringent development criteria which apply to the lower divisions of the World Cricket league.

The core eligibility criteria for national team players are not terribly demanding. A player need only demonstrate that he was born in the country, has spent at least 183 days in the country in three of the past five years, or be in possession of a valid passport. It is entirely possible that Selowa and Ndhlovu qualified for Ugandan nationality through ancestry, Ndhlovu may in fact have been born in the country as one of his profiles suggests, or they may have been naturalised through some other route. But the development criteria additionally demand that players have either played a minimum of 50% of scheduled domestic league matches in three of the preceding five seasons in that country, or have spent a cumulative total of at least 100 days there working in the administration or development of cricket in the preceding five years.

Records for club cricket in Uganda are not readily available online, nor is there any easy way of checking whether Ndhlovu or Selowa had spent the requisite 100 days in the country – perhaps coaching or in some other capacity. At this point a call to the Ugandan Cricket Association seems the obvious way of clearing things up. This, however, proves rather challenging. The general office number for Cricket Uganda appears to have been disconnected. So, it would seem, have a significant portion of the mobile numbers listed on Cricket Uganda's website. A successful call to CU's operations manager was interrupted as the conversation turned to Mukobe and Mutyagaba. Subsequent connections were similarly unsuccessful. The Ugandan Cricket Association, in fact, does not seem to have a functioning phone line between them. At least not today. Enquiries by email go unanswered. So too on facebook and twitter.

Options exhausted, a direct enquiry to the ICC seems warranted. This, sadly, does little to clarify matters - as the ICC is unable to comment on individual eligibility cases for reasons of safeguarding personal privacy. A spokesperson is however willing to offer the reassurance that the ICC is satisfied that Phillemon Mukobe and Abram Mutyagaba satisfy both the core qualification and development criteria for eligibility. Nonetheless one is left to wonder whether the same is true of Mpho Selowa and Lepono Ndhlovu, as it seems that so far as the ICC is concerned they are of no consequence.

"The information the ICC uses to determine player eligibility is provided by the Home Boards, so we are not able to comment on the accuracy of website information."

I, similarly, will decline to speculate on the accuracy of the information provided by this particular home board, leaving further Ugandan discursions as an exercise for the reader.