Cricket: Nigeria maintain lead with 8 wins at West African Trophy

Nigerian team, the Yellow-Greens, on Thursday, sat comfortably on top of the leaderboard of the ongoing West Africa Trophy at Tafawa Balewa Cricket Oval, Lagos with eight wins and two matches to spare.

Rwanda, Ghana, and Sierra Leone trailed Nigeria respectively in the four-nation tournament sponsored by Dafabet in conjunction with the Nigeria Cricket Federation (NCF).

Nigeria’s eight wins included three victories apiece against Ghana and Sierra Leone and two against Rwanda.

Nigeria’s Suleiman Runsewe leads the batters chart with 208 runs on the log from the eight games played so far — the high points of which are 80 runs he had from 62 balls in the encounter with Ghana on Tuesday and 79 runs from 55 balls against Sierra Leone earlier on October 5.

Rwanda’s Hamza Khan follows with 177 runs from eight matches, while Nigeria’s Ajekun Daniel sits in the third spot with 160 runs.

Isaac Okpe, Nigeria’s right-hand medium bowler, leads the bowling chart with 16 wickets from eight matches played, two ahead of Emmanuel Sebareme and Martin Akayezu who are tied at 14 wickets apiece from eight matches. Nigeria’s Cheimelie Udekwe places fourth with 13 wickets.

“There are gains we are recording in the sub-region, which are rubbing off on the quality of the game,” said Uyi Akpata, president of the NCF.

“We have used the West Africa Cup to rally those gains.”

Friday has been designated rest day with the final two games scheduled for Saturday and Sunday.