Cricket: Nigeria women’s team gears up for World Cup qualifiers

Nigeria’s female Yellow-Greens will depart Lagos for the International Cricket Council (ICC) T20 World Cup Africa qualifiers in Uganda on Thursday.

Nigeria will face Rwanda, Namibia and Uganda in Group B of the competition billed to start on Saturday at the Entebbe Cricket Oval.

The female Yellow-Greens, who are ranked 30th in the world, would be hoping to pick one of the two tickets at stake during the qualifiers.

Group A of the qualifiers will see Zimbabwe, Tanzania, Botswana and Kenya slug it out among themselves for a spot in the main tournament.

Leke Oyede, head coach of female Yellow-Greens, released a 14-cricketer list that will participate in the qualifiers.

The list includes Blessing Etim, the team’s long-serving captain, alongside Salome Sunday, Esther Sandy, Lucky Piety, Victory Igbinedion, Favour Eseigbe and Christabel Chukwuonye.

Others are Sarah Etim, Abigail Igbobie, Lilian Udeh, Rukayat Abdulrasaq, Peculiar Agboya, Adekunle Adeshola and Rachael Samson.

Speaking on Wednesday, Oyede said the team had camped at the cricket high-performance center at Edo boys’ high school, Benin City, since mid-September.

He also said he believes the players are primed for the qualifiers.

“We have had the benefit of being together for a long time and put a lot of work to address the weaknesses we observed from the last events we took part in,” he said.

“So, we are going to Uganda assured of better performance, compared to our participations earlier in the year.”

Nigeria will open the Uganda qualifier against Namibia on Sunday.

Earlier in the year, the female Yellow-Greens won the five-nation NCF Women’s T20i Invitational.