Maiden female cricket league ends with super-4 in Benin

The south-south female cricket league would be rounding off this weekend in Benin, Edo state with a super-four playoff to determine the winner.

Uyi Akpata, chairman of the Edo State Cricket Association and member representing the south-south zone on the Nigeria Cricket Federation board, said the event is the first of its kind in west and north Africa.

“We feel cricket development should not leave out any gender and after we saw the response from the girls during our grassroots project, we felt it was ripe for a separate platform to be created for them,” Akpata said.

“We intend to make this part of our continuous growth plan such that talents discovered throughout state-wide coaching grassroots project would find room to develop, mature and would be mentored into perhaps the state team and other available opportunities.”

The super-4, scheduled to hold on March 20 and 21 at Edo Boys High School would parade two top teams from each of the two zonal classifications of the preliminary rounds.

The eight-club league had featured three clubs from Edo state, two from Akwa-Ibom, and one each from Rivers, Bayelsa and Delta states. All the teams were grouped in two (zones A and B) with each side playing from either the University of Port Harcourt cricket pitch in Rivers state or Iyoba College in Benin, Edo state.

Adolor Amazons and Ekpoma Supernovas qualified as top teams from zone A, while Pathfinders from Rivers state and Smashers from Akwa Ibom state qualified from zone B to complete the teams scheduled for this weekend’s super-4 series at the High-Performance Center, Benin city.

Winners on March 20 will play in the finals on March 21 in which losers on the previous day would also contest for third place.