Nigeria’s senior national Cricket team, the Yellow-Greens handed Cameroun a defeat to record five straight wins at the on-going International Cricket Council’s T20 World Cup Sub-regional Africa Qualifier B in Rwanda on Monday December 6, 2022.
The victory solidifies Nigeria’s chance for the two tickets at stake for the next round of World Cup Qualification, after defeating Mozambique, Sierra Leone, Eswatini and Gambia earlier in the event.
Though the match was decided by Duckworth–Lewis–Stern (DLS) method after rain disrupted the encounter between the two countries in the second inning.
The limited over calculation (DLS) favored the rampaging Nigerian team who had posted 31 runs in five overs, having held the Cameroonians down to 72 runs and all out in 19.4 overs.
Nigeria’s Captain, Slyvester Okpe, was man of the match owing to his dispatch of five batters in the encounter in which he said the team was pleased to add to its string of wins.
“We had chosen to field when we saw the possibility of the weather condition not going well earlier in the day. So, everything worked well in our favour.”
Nigeria’s next match will be against Tanzania on Thursday at the Gahanaga International Cricket Stadium in Kigali, both teams are the only teams with clean slates at the event so far and game will hence determine who tops the qualifying round before they both have finals matches the next day.
Nigeria ranks 43rd on the ICC T20i ranking behind Tanzania that sits 31st on the World ranking log.
Nigeria’s last match is against West African rival, Ghana, who unfortunately has not had a good run at the event with one victory and three successive defeats so far.
Former Nigeria’s captain and players representative on the board of Nigeria Cricket Federation, Endurance Ofem, believes the Nigerian team still has a thing or two to show in their next two matches.
“The team may be doing well; I however think we have not seen the best of the talents represented. I think against Tanzania, hoping that some players would have rested enough, we may see the Coach (Steve Tikolo) ring some changes that will show us a different side of the team. This is an interesting assembly of Cricket talent”
