South South’s male and female teams yesterday in Abuja maintained their dominance in Nigeria’s cricket, winning the PwC/NCF U17 National Championships for the third consecutive time. The tournament, in its fourth edition, has seen the two sides dominate the competition since inception.
It was the fourth consecutive win for the ladies and the third for the male team.
In the final played on Sunday at the Cricket Pitch inside Moshood Abiola National Stadium, Package B in Abuja, the defending champions pitched against South East.
South East won the toss and opted to field. The bowling effort of Faith Okpara 3/16 was not enough to limit the defending champions as they raced to 133/5 in 20 overs.
Player of Match Piety Lucky 49(36) and teammate Peculiar Agboya 30(20) did the job for the South South zone as they finished the innings on a high note.
In reply, South East managed to reach 67 runs/10 in 17.4 overs as Lucky earned a 4-wicket haul for 10 in 3.4 overs. South South won by 64 runs.
For Male category, South South won by 71 runs. The men’s game began with South South winning the toss and electing to bat against North West.
Abraham Oaikena 27 (33) and Godswill Effiong 28(29) did the most for the defending champions as they scored 128 all out in 24 overs.
To win, North West needed to score 129 runs but the likes of Unity Ogbide 3/16 and Effiong 5/6 was instrumental in restricting the Northern side to 56/10 in 21.4 overs.
Earlier, in the third place battle, South West defeated South East by 17 runs in the boys event.
Speaking shortly after the 2023 successful event, President of Cricket Federation Uyi Akpata who was represented by his Vice President Wale Obalola revealed that the Price hooper Cooper sponsorship is no doubt giving mileage to Development of Cricket Federation in the country.
The head coach of South South teams lauded his team’s performance.
“I am very happy with the players and the performance. It should our hard-work has paid off and hopefully we will keep improving on this feat.”
In others award category, for Girls, Aisha Aliyu from North East emerged Best Behaved, while Precious Simon from North West was the Best Fielder and Kehinde Amusan emerged Best Fielder from South West.
The Best Batter was presented to Chinemerem Ihezuo of South East and the Most Valuable Player (MVP) was presented to Piety Lucky of South South.
The Boys event saw Abdullahi Ismail of North West go home as the Best Behaved while Daniel Joseph of South West was Best Fielder.
The Best Batter was presented to South West’s Wale Odukoya while South South’s Joseph Omonkhobhio is the Best Bowler and the MVP award to Kareem Gafar from South West.
The tournament which began on Thursday, came to end on Sunday.
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