Australia beat Nigeria in U-19 Cricket World Cup opener

Nigeria on Monday, started its maiden appearance at the U-19 Cricket World Cup against Australia in Kimberly, South Africa on a losing note.

The Junior Green Yellow won the toss and were elected to bat first. Miracle Ikaigbe and Sulaimon Runsewe opened the batting for the team and very quickly Runsewe was out just after 2 balls.

Nigeria was 12 runs for the loss of 3 wickets in 5 overs and after 10 overs were 28 runs for the loss of 3 wickets.

Wickets fell in quick successions and Nigeria, who could not muster a decent partnership, was bowled out for 61 runs in 30.3overs.

Elijah Olaleye was the only spark in the Nigerian team with 21 runs off 53 ball.

Tanveer Sangha was also the star performer with the ball for Australia with an impressive statistics of 5 wickets for 14 runs in 10 overs with 4 maidens in the process.

In the second innings, Australia made light work of run chase racing to 50 runs in just 7 overs.

Nigeria were not really impressive on the pitch either with dropped catches, miss-field and lost run-out chances while Australia finished the match with 10 wickets intact, scoring 62 runs.

Opening pair of Stuart  Fanning and Fraser McGurk scored 30 and 23 runs respectively to take Australia home with 10 wickets win.

Nigeria will play West Indies for the second group game on Wednesday.