Cricket: Nigeria win maiden West Africa Trophy

The national male cricket team, Yellow-Greens, on Sunday, completed a clean sweep at the first West African Trophy rounded off at the Tafawa Balewa Square, Lagos — after winning all their ten matches at the two-week event.

Nigeria routed Rwanda to 17 runs victory, their fourth win over the East African side during the twenty-match series that started on October 4, and qualified for the finals of the West Africa Trophy after winning all the round-robin matches and beating Ghana, Sierra Leone, and Rwanda.

The tenth match was a placement that pitched Nigeria, with 18 points, against Rwanda who had the second-highest points (8) from four matches. Ghana also had four wins but had a lower net run rate. The third-place match then pitted Ghana against Sierra Leone for the 3rd and 4th classification match.

Sierra Leone snatched a six-wicket win from Ghana in the first match of the closing day before Nigeria wrapped up the tournament with her tenth win.

Uyi Akpata, president of the Nigeria Cricket Federation (NCF), said: “It is a very successful experiment and we are glad to have the national team that complimented all our efforts with a sterling performance.”

Akpata also said the federation had planned several platforms to expose the Yellow-Greens and other national teams, including hosting a major home-grown event.

“The West Africa Trophy came in handy in this respect. But we have a number of our partners like Dafabet, Sparkle, Nigeria Breweries, and Lagos State government to thank for this outcome,” he said.

Nigeria’s Isaac Okpe won the most valuable player of the tournament and bowler of the tournament awards with 17 wickets. His teammate, Sulaimon Runsewe, won the batter of the tournament award with 229 runs off ten games, in addition to winning the fielder award with nine dismissals from ten matches.