Cricket: Nigeria U-19 women set for World Cup qualifiers

Nigeria’s team for the International Cricket Council (ICC) maiden African qualifiers for the women’s U-19 World Cup will depart Lagos on Tuesday for Gaborone, Botswana venue of the event.

The final list of players representing the country was released on Saturday after intensive camping of the team at the Edo Boys High School’s High Performance Center in Benin city.

Miracle Imimole, who leads the pack, comes with experience as a current senior national team player.

Others are Victory Igbenedion, Divine Uranta, Lucky Piety — (Wk), Queen Joseph, Oseyande Omokhobhnlhio, Rebecca Awaji — (Wk) and Aisha Shittu (Wk), all of whom are batters.

The bowlers include Henrietta Mbam, Rejoice Assan (spin), Peculiar Agboya, Ude Lilian, Judith Anthony, and team’s vice captain Rukayat Abdulrasak. The standby players are Shola Adekunle and Amarachi Noko.

On Sunday, Onome Oghenekevwe, coach of the team, said his players are in high spirit for the qualifiers with a number of them being already regulars in the senior national women’s team.

“Our goal is to pick the World Cup ticket at the qualifiers. So every game is important for us. The male side did it in 2019, so there is nothing more than picking the ticket,” Oghenekevwe said.

Uyi Akpata, president of Nigeria Cricket Federation (NPF), said although women cricket in Nigeria is one of the leading development stories in Africa, the federation has also made efforts to spread the stride across board.

“I am delighted to see the young teenagers that would be taking part in this maiden Under-19 qualifier in Botswana. Virtually all of them are the direct products of our schools developmental project, which earned Nigeria the global development awards,” Akpata said.

The qualifiers will run from September 3 to 12.

Nigeria will be battling for the lone World Cup spot against Malawi, Mozambique, Namibia, Rwanda, Sierra Leone, Tanzania, Uganda and host Botswana.