Nigeria’s U19 Cricket Teams Ready For Continental Challenge

The Nigeria Cricket Federation (NCF) has announced that the national U19 boys and girls teams will begin their campaign for their respective World Cup tickets from July 31.
Emeka Igwilo, the general manager of the federation, disclosed this, saying the boys’ team is billed for Tanzania this week aiming 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 it has always put us in the spotlight since then. We are banking on the experience and hard work of the coaching staff to scale the next stage,” Igwillo said.

He said the board had re-appointed the coach of the men’s Under-19 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 them in the tournaments that run from July 31 to August 14 in Dar es Salaam, Tanzania,” he said.

Their female under-19 team, parading eight members of the senior national female team, is scheduled for a one-level World Cup Qualifier in Kigali, Rwanda from August 19 to 31.
Igwilo says 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.

“The players in both teams are products of different developmental programmes 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 and the board prioritises grassroots engagement across the country along with facility development and continuous upskilling our staff must continue,” he also said.

The senior men’s national team also recently completed a bilateral encounter with Kenya where they featured in five T20 games and Two 50 overs, losing 3-2 in the T20 series and losing 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,” the NCF further said.

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