2 months ago
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Nigeria Cricket Federation president, Uyi Akpata, says the body will continue to leverage its women’s development efforts following recent successes leading to raising formidable female national teams at junior and senior levels.
The NCF has recently put together a maiden age-grade international tournament for the women’s U-19 national team—the Nigeria-Ghana U-19 Women Series.
The event is a four-team invitational tournament that kicked off last Sunday at the University of Lagos Cricket Oval, parading Nigeria and Ghana’s U-19 teams, the Southwest female team, and a selected national women’s team.
The tournament is a preparatory event for the Nigerian team ahead of the 2025 ICC U-19 Women’s World Cup Africa Division One Qualifiers, which will be played in Kigali from September 22, but Akpata said that the strategic objective of the federation is to attain gender equality in its developmental effort.
“Apart from getting the women’s U-19 team in shape for the Division One World Cup Qualifier starting September 22 in Kigali, this event allows us to test the depth of our women’s development. For the first time, we are parading three teams of national team quality and invited Ghana’s U-19 women to join,” Akpata said.
“Development is an ongoing process; carefully curating the process that produces and hones our players’ skills is key for us. Of course, we are looking forward to picking the World Cup ticket, but it will be better if we keep refining the process that produces and makes our players better.”
The senior female national team also won bronze at the African Games in Accra in March, which the president described as a testament to their efforts.
“We now have a female cricket league run in the South-South, with eight teams taking part and a fully functional cricket facility inside an all-girl Iyoba College in Benin City, Edo State.
“We have had our school outreaches focused a bit more on girl-child initiatives, and it has been yielding results. The impact is beginning to resonate for the country already,” he added.
Nigeria has been drawn in Group B of the eight-team series that parades Zimbabwe, Tanzania, and Malawi, with Group A housing Rwanda, Namibia, Uganda, and Kenya.
