Nigeria Cricket Teams Ready for Continental Challenge

The Nigeria Cricket Federation has announced that the national Under-19 teams (Boys and Girls), will begin their campaign for their respective World Cup tickets from July 31st, 2024.

According to Emeka Igwilo the General Manager of the Federation, the boys’ team is billed for Tanzania this week. The team hopes to pick one of the two tickets at stake at the Under-19 Men’s Cricket World Cup, African Qualifier Division 2.

“Our performance at this stage in 2019 gave us the first World Cup Ticket and hence this stage has always put us in the spotlight since then. We are banking on the experience of the coaching staff and hard work to scale the next stage,” he said.

Igwilo said the board had re-appointed the coach of the Men’s U19 team, (Daniel Gim), and hopes he will build on his experience to deliver results for the country.

“The team has been camping for weeks, and we are hoping this will count for the team for their tournaments that run from July 31st to August 14th Dar es Salaam, Tanzania,” Igwilo added.

Their female counterpart, the U19 Women’s Team, who are parading about eight members of the national female team is scheduled for a one-level World Cup Qualifier in Kigali, Rwanda from August 19th to 31st.

Igwilo stressed that apart from a new technical team handling the teenagers, he believes that the team parading some experienced players- who helped the country secure the African Games Silver medal in Accra, Ghana, raises hope of performing well during the event.

Igwilo added that the players in the two teams were products of different developmental programs across the country which speaks to the effort of the coaches and developmental officers driving cricket at the grassroots.

“These youngsters represent the future of the game in Nigeria. The board prioritizes grassroots engagement across the country and we know that if the game must our progress investment in the pockets of developmental activities that produced them, along with facility development and continuous upskilling our staff must continue.”

The Senior Men’s national team also just completed a bilateral encounter with Kenya where they feature in five T20 games and Two 50 overs. They lost 3-2 in the T20 series and lost all 50-over encounters.

“The Nigerian teams have been busy shaping up for the quarters ahead. And we are happy at the lessons we are picking up and the adjustments they are opening us to,” he said.

The Senior men’s national team will feature in a Division 2 World Cup Qualifier to be hosted in the country later in November.