By Akanimo Kufre
Captain of Nigeria Female Cricket team, Blessing Etim told Sporting Sun that “hard work” separated former champions, Kenya and Nigeria who has continued in outstanding winning streak in the Kwibuka Women’s T20 cricket tournament in Kigali.
Nigerian Female Yellow-Greens on Sunday afternoon defeated one of Africa’s cricket powerhouse, Kenya by 3 wickets.
Kenya opened batting and scored 95/4 while Nigeria played 98/7 in the second inning to win. Lucky Piety was awarded the Player of the match for a superb batting skills including two ‘sixes’.
Blessing Etim, Nigeria’s most capped player also said the girls were not tensed this time as they filed out against the four times Champions, Kenya. The Nigerian female cricket team for the first time in the history of the tournament played as serious contenders for the title with victories against Rwanda, and Kenya.
The girls surprise performance made some cricket followers attributed their success to the massive investment and transformative incentives by the Nigeria Cricket Federation (NCF) under President Uyi Akpata.
Former female cricket team coach, Onome Oghenekevwe told Sporting Sun that the girls have reached “maturity” in the game of cricket to win the tournament.
“The odds favours Nigeria now due to the maturity of the players and man management of the technical crew.
“The girls are honestly tired of losing to them (Kenya, Uganda and Rwanda) so they will always fight to the last ball. Nigeria must play with caution because these two teams (Uganda and Kenya) have the ability to steal games at late hours.”
The girls former handler affirmed that the team’s current form is no surprise because Nigeria has been working and sitting on the “edge of dominance” in cricket.