Nigeria Edge Tanzania, Brighten Cricket World Cup Chances

The Nigeria men’s cricket team, the Yellow-Greens, secured a three-wicket victory against Tanzania yesterday in Windhoek, Namibia to shake off the slow start they had recorded at the International Cricket Council Men T20 World Cup Qualifier they are taking part in.

Nigeria returned to United Cricket ground after their slip up against Kenya on Thursday and needed a win against Tanzania to restore any hope of top-two finish from the seven-nation qualifiers.

Nigeria’s Captain, Sylvester Okpe, said the team knew nothing would do at this stage of the game outside a win.

“It was a win we needed, we had no excuse but to lock down this win. Our match against Kenya wasn’t what he had hoped for and a rain-washed Rwandan encounter that saw us share points, didn’t help our cause. So, this was a much needed win,” revealed Okpe shortly after the victory over Tanzania.

The game got off with Nigeria fielding, having lost the toss to the Tanzania side. With a smart use of the power-play, the East Africans rallied Nigeria to 139 runs in their innings.

Captain Abhik Patwa scored 52 runs, off 40 balls, while Ivan Selemani posted 26 from 22 balls containing  Nigeria’s pace bowlers in the process.

The second innings was marked with tweaks in the team’s traditional batting order that saw Ashmit Shreshta come in at number three while Prosper Useni and Ridwan Abdulkareem were also promoted up the batting order.

The changes gave Nigeria some freshness with Useni stepping up again to deliver critical boundaries that lifted the team when the run-rate leaked. 

He chalked up 31 runs off 19 balls. Sesan Adedeji, Yellow-Green’s number four put up 24 off 26 balls while spin-bowler Abdulkareem contributed 16 runs off 12 balls (including two wickets he snatched in the first inning).

President of the Nigeria Cricket Federation, Uyi Akpata, who joined the team in Windhoek yesterday said the interesting part of the win was the confidence the team played with.

“We would love to pick the World Cup ticket, but that is a bit difficult now given the results of our first two matches. We are more focused on using this event as a  measure of our continual development programme for the team,”stressed the NCF President.

Uganda national team created an upset in Windhoek earlier in the day, when they defeated Zimbabwe, test playing nation, in their first competitive encounter.

Nigeria will continue the quest for the World Cup ticket with an encounter against Uganda today (Monday, November 27) at the United Cricket ground at 2:00 pm.

Other nations battling for the 2024 T20 World Cup ticket include Zimbabwe, Kenya, Uganda, Tanzania, Rwanda and host Namibia.