Cricket: Nigeria continues fine run at West African Trophy
BY Afolabi Gambari
Nigeria men’s cricket team, the Yellow-Greens, on Sunday, in Windhoek, Namibia got a three-wicket victory against Tanzania to shake off the slow start they had recorded at the ongoing International Cricket Council (ICC) men T20 World Cup qualifiers.
The Nigerians who were retuning to united cricket ground after their slip up against Kenya on Thursday and draw against Rwanda on Friday needed a win against Tanzania to restore any hope of top-two finish from the seven nation qualifiers.
Sylvester Okpe, Nigeria’s captain, said the team knew nothing would do outside a win.
“It was a win we needed, we have no excuse but to lock down this game. Our match against Kenya wasn’t what he had hoped for and a rain washed encounter against Rwanda on Friday which saw us share points didn’t help our cause either. So, this win is a huge respite,” Okpe said.
The game got off with Nigeria fielding, having lost the toss to the Tanzanian 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 and 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 are 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.
Uyi Akpata, president of the Nigeria Cricket Federation who joined the team in Windhoek on Sunday, expressed delight at what he called the Yellow-Greens’ “confident display”.
“We would love to pick the World Cup ticket, but that is a bit difficult now given the results of our last two matches. We are more focused on using this event as a measure of our continual development programme for the team,” Akpata said.
Meanwhile the Uganda national team created an upset earlier in the day, defeating test-playing nation Zimbabwe in their first competitive encounter.
Nigeria will play Uganda on Monday as it continue its quest for the World Cup ticket.
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