Nigeria Ready To Build On Cricket World Cup Success – Akpata

Nigeria Cricket Federation President, Uyi Akpata has revealed that the board is ready to build on the impressive performance of the Junior Female Yellow Greens at the ICC U-19 Women’s T20 World Cup in Malaysia.

Nigeria stunned the cricket world with their energetic performances in the tournament with historic victories over New Zealand, and Ireland.

In the group stage of the tournament, The Junior Female Yellow Greens lost to South Africa, and recorded a share of the spoils against Samoa, and England to seal a place in the Super six.

Akpata has outlined the federation’s plans to build on the team’s success in the tournament.

He said: “We redefined expectations as we went along and these girls deserve all the accolades they are getting. Having said that, this is not just happening by chance, it is four years in the making.

“We have six targets. For the female team, we want to break into the top 20 in the world and the top 25 in the world for the male so that we can go and play in the Challenge League where we can play the ODI, that’s a different status.

“One of the key things again is that we now have a brand we can sell so we are going commercial.

“Let people also recognise that they can invest in the cricket brand. Before the World Cup, we got two requests from international companies including one in Costa Rica saying they want to have their names on our outfit. But I paused and thought I’d rather prefer a Nigerian brand. That’s what these girls have done. Hopefully, we will launch the Nigerian Super League this year as well.”

Nigeria finished fifth at the ICC U-19 Women’s T20 World Cup in Malaysia in their first-ever outing in the competition, while also securing an automatic ticket to the next U19 Cricket World cup.

Nigeria Ready To Build On Cricket World Cup Success – Akpata is first published on The Whistler Newspaper