Nigeria’s under-19 male cricket side, the Junior Yellow Greens, on Saturday qualified for the ICC U-19 World Cup slated for January in South Africa by two wickets Manager, Nigeria’s National Cricket Team, Mr Olisa Egwuatu , spoke on the team’s victory at the Jersey 2013 World Cricket League in Abuja.
Team Nigeria defeated Vanuatu, Bahrain, Kuwait and Argentina but lost to Jersey, to pick a silver medal in the competition. The Nigeria side sealed their qualification after winning their last match against Sierra Leone at the ICC World Cup Africa qualifiers in Windhoek, Namibia. Sierra Leone won the toss and elected to bat first, sending in Nigeria to field for the first time in the tournament. Nigeria started on a bright note with the bowling attack on point and with Sierra Leone struggling to piece together a decent partnership.
A lone ranger in the person of Kamara Henry struck with power and venom into every trick delivered by the Nigerian bowlers, racing to quick 50 runs off 60 balls. Nigeria’s Mohammed Taiwo, Abdulrahman Jimoh, Peter Aho and Abolarin Rasheed all had 2 wickets each however. In the second innings, Sierra Leone deployed a bowling approach to restrict the Nigerian team to 20 runs for the loss of one wicket. At 91 runs for seven wickets, it was looking more like Sierra Leone would provide that punch that would sink the ship eventually.
The timing of the next fall of wicket was then expected to determine the outcome of the game. But the top performer who showed class and courage in the midst of trouble was Aho with a remarkable 21 runs off 32 balls not out. Nigeria survived in what could be described as the best performance in this tournament to record the required total of 139 runs for the loss of eight wickets in 44.2 overs. Aho was named “Man of the Match’’ with his bowling and batting statistics of two wickets and 21 runs not out. The News Agency of Nigeria (NAN) reports that the Junior Yellow Greens ended the qualifiers with a decent unbeaten run against Kenya, Tanzania, Uganda, Sierra Leone and host Namibia.(NAN)
Pix: Team Manager, Nigeria’s National Cricket Team, Mr Olisa Egwuatu (R), speking with the media after victory
