Rocks Cricket Club of Abeokuta has won the maiden edition of the GTA 20/20 tournament. The champions defeated Foundation Cricket Club of Lagos on Sunday, April 27 at Lagos’s TBS Cricket Oval by 23 runs to clinch the trophy.

Continue reading "Rocks win Nigeria's Twenty20 title"

Nigeria have won the second North West African Championships following a narrow one-wicket win over their arch-rivals, Sierra Leone, in the final match of the five-nation tournament in Lagos on Thursday.

Endurance Ofem, named Player of the Series, guided Nigeria home with 39 as Nigeria overhauled Sierra Leone's 142, despite Lansana Lamin's 4 for 20 from his 10 overs. Ofem also scored the tournament's only century.

Hopes the tournament will expand past its British Commonwealth roots were dashed for this year by the withdrawal of Cameroon and Morocco. Eventually it is intended to include Egypt and Libya.

It was a typical tournament of West African national teams with the usual finishing order of Nigeria first, Sierra Leone second, Ghana finishing third and Gambia fourth.

Mali, the former French colony, was the fifth team, clearly still in its learning phase, with team totals of 12, 24, 151 and 15.

Tony Munro

The Cricket Tour of Nigeria by London Nigerians Cricket Club (LNCC) tagged "Beyond the Boundary" ended on Sunday, March 30 at the Tafawa Balewa Cricket Oval with thrills. The tour which took them from Lagos to Abuja and back to Lagos was very successful and memorable for the tourists. This was the third tour of the club since the maiden one in 2000. The second tour was in 2006. The tour has been organized by the Nigeria Cricket Federation (NCF). Nigeria also held a press conference in which the NCF President welcomed all Guests and Members of the Press to the official unveiling of the North West Africa Cricket Championship (NWACC) Logo. Mr. Albert Okumagba, MD/CEO of BGL was called upon to perform the unveiling of the NWACC logo. The NWACC will be hosted by Nigeria at three venues, TBS, University of Lagos both in Lagos and MKO Abiola Stadium in Abeokuta.

From 1st to 11th April, 2008, Nigeria will host the 2nd NWACC tournament and the NCF is determined to increase the profile of the sport in the country. The NCF President mentioned that he is pleased to advise that the ACA is particularly delighted with their progress administratively in the last two years and is ready to assist in transferring that success to the field of play so that they can qualify for better levels of funding from the ICC.

GTA 20/20 CRICKET TOURNEY: ROCKS CC & FCC FOR FINAL

On Sunday, March 16, the Tafawa Balewa Cricket Oval was set on fire with the sound of willow on leather as the semi-final matches of the maiden edition of GTA 20/20 Cricket Tournament lived up to the expectations of cricket enthusiasts.

In the first semi-final match played between Rocks CC of Abeokuta and Howzat Pioneers CC of Lagos, Rocks won by 3 wickets to secure a ticket for the final. Pioneers scratched all the way throughout their innings to score 102 runs for 8 wickets. Rocks won the game in the 13th over. Niyi Adegbola (35*) and Joshua Ogunlola (26).

In the second semi-final match played at the same venue, hard fighting Foundation Cricket Club proved all wrong when they chased the 197 runs scored by the Lagos Asians CC and beat the target in the last over for the loss of 6 wickets. It was a really explosive encounter as a total of 15 sixes were scored by both sides.

Top scorers for the Lagos Asians were Changrani (45), Giu (67), Chamrani (31) and Amjadi (23) while for Foundation CC were Dolapo Gafar (36),Femi Oduyebo (65), Tayo Atoloye (34), Wale Adeoye (21) and Oris Oruye (18*).

Mr. Tosin Runsewe, the Managing Director of Guaranty Trust Assurance who witnessed the exciting and explosive encounters was pleased with the standard of play and the level of organization of the tournament and pledged that his organization will continue to support the 20/20 series.

The final match is set to take place on Sunday, April 27, 2008 at the Tafawa Balewa Cricket Oval.

The number of people actively participating in cricket outside the Test-playing countries increased 17% in 2007, according to the ICC.

The research, carried out by the ICC's development program, was collated from 33 Associate and 58 Affiliate members. It showed that there were 338,051 male and female players in those countries in 2007, an increase of 49,158 on the previous year. Since 2002, when there were 144,047 participants, there has been a 135% rise.

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Although sport in Nigeria is dominated by football, cricket is growing in popularity which will please everyone who is trying to spread the game through Africa. In an interview with Punch, a major Nigerian newspaper, Kwesi Sagoe, the president of the Nigeria Cricket Federation, talks about his hopes of taking the game further.

I do not agree that cricket is elitist; not in the light that you have portrayed it. Cricket as a sport has been played in Nigerian schools for many years. You could say that the media attention has not been favourable to the sport and that probably would have accounted for the notion that it‘s elitist. Also, the fact that the sport has not commanded a nation-wide participation, as football does, has made it a rather southern affair. But if you observe objectively, you will discover that it is very popular in the southern part of the country. The popularity is growing as I speak and I believe that with time, it will spread across the country.

Nigeria's season begins on October 7 this year, a couple of weeks earlier than usual due to a packed schedule.

Nigeria's Cricket new season will kick off on Oct. 7, according to the president of the Nigeria Cricket Federation (NCF).

Kwesi Sagoe said the federation has decided to begin the 2007/2008 season earlier than previous years because of a very tight schedule in the coming months which will see several local competitions that include the Iris Smart Technologies (CCC) League and the Super Four.

Sagoe said apart from the tight domestic schedule, Nigeria will be hosting the Second North/West African Cricket Tournament sometime in April or May next year, Lagos-based the Guardian reported Wednesday.

The Nigerian Cricket Association has applied for a special grant from the African Cricket Association to help expand the game.

"We intend to develop at least two turf wickets in the country," NCA president Kwesi Sagoe said. "The absence of the facility has held down our game for too long.

"There are a number of other countries also queuing for grants from ACA for different purposes. Ours is to develop grass wickets.”

The Nigerian Cricket Association has brought forward the start of the new season because of the hectic schedule facing it.

NCA president Kwesi Sagoe said the season would start on October 7 and flagged the Club Cricket Committee League, the Super Four and the proposed Twenty20 tournament among competitions which will be run.

He said in addition to the tight domestic schedule, Nigeria will be hosting the Second North/West African Cricket Tournament in April or May 2008, and will participate in an Under-15 tournament in Gambia and another Under-13 tournament in Ghana.

Botswana produced the shock of the Africa Under-19 World Cup Qualifiers when they Uganda by 27 runs to reach the semi-finals in Benoni on Monday.

Botswana's unexpected victory eliminated Tanzania from the semi-final on net run-rate after the duo along with Uganda ended up at four points each from three matches. In Wednesday's semi-finals, Uganda meets Namibia while Kenya faces Botswana. Kenya topped Pool One after conjuring up a four-wicket victory over Zambia while Namibia finished second after defeating Ghana by 172 runs, courtesy of an unbeaten century by Sean Silver.

In the Botswana-Uganda match, Botswana scored 192 for 8 after being put into bat with contributions from Karan Kapoor (54) and Nadeem Tajbhay (36) while Emmanuel Nakaana bagged 3 for 45. In turn, Uganda was dismissed for 165 in 44 overs after losing their last seven wickets for 54.

Tanzania, in their last match, carved out a 153-run victory over Nigeria. Athumani Kakonzi (70) and Seif Abdul (68) put on 123 for the second wicket to set the platform for Tanzania's 296 in 49.5 overs. Nigeria, in its target chase, were bowled out for 143.

Silver scored 101 to inspire Namibia to a 172-run victory over Ghana and featured in a 117-run second wicket partnership with Tiaan Louw (62) as Namibia scored 287 for 6. Ghana were dismissed for 115 with Elandre Oosthuizen taking 4 for 39 and Louis Petrus van der Westhuizen claiming 3 for 13.

Spinners Rakep Patel and Rohit Vekaria shared six wickets to help Kenya beat Zamibia by four wickets. Patel took 3 for 16 and Vekaria bagged 3 for 17 as Zambia were spun out for 152. Kenya achieved victory in 34.1 overs for the loss of six wickets.

The winner of the Africa Under-19 Qualifiers join Papua New Guinea (from the East Asia-Pacific Region), Ireland (from the Europe Region) and Bermuda (from the Americas Region), the ICC's 10 Full Members and hosts Malaysia at the 16-team U-19 World Cup from February 17 to March 2 2008 in Malaysia.

The Gambia will host the North-West African Cricket Championship between May 11 to May 18. Six countries - Mali, Morocco, Sierra-Leone, Nigeria, Ghana and the Gambia - are expected to take part in the championship which will be the first of its kind on the continent.

It won't get many column inches in the mainstream cricket press, but the World Cricket League, which started in Nairobi yesterday and continues into next week, features the best of the rest, the six sides just under the ten Test-playing countries. For the two finalists, the rewards are bountiful - a place among the big boys in the inaugural Twenty20 World Championship in South Africa this September, along with $250,000. For countries used to surviving on annual handouts from the ICC of less than $200,000, that's big money.

Continue reading "A long way from home"

Hoosain Ayub, the ICC development officer for Africa, has said that Nigeria has the potential to become a major power in the cricket world. Ayub gave a presentation entitled "Good governance and leadership create good cricket team" at the council of the Nigeria Cricket Federation (NCF) in the capital Abuja.

"All stakeholders and lovers of cricket must unite and work to turn Nigeria into a cricket giant not only in Africa but in the entire world," he said.

"Countries and regions like Uganda have made tremendous achievements in women's cricket and I believe Nigeria can make similar gains, if you take the proper steps."

He also advised them to seek for corporate funding to sponsor their programs rather than rely solely on funding from the ICC.

Full story at the Africa News Dimension.

Kwesi Sagoe has been appointed president of the Nigeria Cricket Federation:

In an acceptance speech, Sagoe said in spite of the power tussle that had engulfed the federation in the last 12 months, the body was still able to run its programme without hindrance.

“This shows that members of the board of the federation can manage successfully their differences even in crisis”, he said.

The cricket body was left without a leader after a stalemated election between Sagoe and former president Dr John Abebe.

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The Nigerian Cricket Association has announced a new initiative to switch the initiative from competitions to youth development.

Dr. John Abebe, the chairman of the Nigeria Cricket Association, said:

“We realised the imperative of de-emphasizing on running competitions. Those who play cricket were getting past their prime and the lack of successors was all too glaring to see.”