Tanzania's national cricket team started their training tour of Kenya's coastal city of Mombasa with bang after mauling their hosts, Coastal Cricket Club by 243 runs in an international friendly match took place here on Saturday at Mombasa Club.

The local cricketers won a toss and opted to bat first firing 297 runs for eight in a 50-allocated over match.

Batsmen Seif Khalifa hitting lead the onslaught with 57 runs with his team mate Rashid Amri posting 50 runs not-out.

"We are extremely happy to have won our first match here", said acting team skipper, Kassim Nassoro, who had 43 runs with a bowler, Riziki Kiseto earning 32 runs together with two wickets he claimed in the thriller.

Their opponents tried to chase but to no avail, ending their turn with 54 runs all out in 28.1 overs.

Tanzanian cricketers were scheduled to play Nairobi Select, which features junior and senior experienced players.

But for the Kenya playares, the trials are aimed helping them to gauge their skills for the ICC Pepsi World League Division One top be held later in July in Netherlands.

"The Tanzanian players would have a good taste against my team because it a mixture of well experineced players", said David Odhiambo, one of the Nairobi Select's officials and a former Kenyan player.

The local cricketers have set up a two weeks training tour of Mombasa to play six trial matches to prepare the for the forthcoming ICC Pepsi World League Division 4 penciled for mid August in Italy.

"We believe that these trials would enable us to assess our team's performance because heading for Italy", said Zulfikar Rehemtullah, one of the team's officials.

Upon their return from Mombasa, the local cricketers would also set up another European training tour of Britain to play some more trials beafore aboarding a flight to Italy.

The four Tanzanian players, Abhik Patwa, Khalil Rehemtullah, national team caption, Hamis Abdallah and Athuman Kakonzi, who are trading their skills in Britain would join the team during the traning before departing altogether to Italy.

This will be the first time for the Tanzanian side to have professional players in the event.

The local cricketers competed in the similar event in 2008 held in Dar es Salaam but failed to progress.

The Italian event is served as a pathway to the 2016 World Cup. Apart from tanzania, other teams, which will also compete in the event include the United States of America (USA) and Nepal, which were recently promoted by the ICC from the Division 5.

The list includes hosts, Italy, Argentina and Cayman Islands.