Captain of Nigeria’s male senior cricket team, Sylvester Okpe, believes the Yellow Greens can translate their dominance at the just concluded West Africa Trophy in Lagos to another landmark achievement, when they play at the 2024 T20 World Cup qualifiers in Namibia next month, PRIMANEWS Sports Extra reports.
The T20 World Cup is scheduled to be held in the West Indies and United States from June 4-30, 2024 and Nigeria will jostle for the two tickets available for Africa against six other countries.
In their build up to the qualifiers, Nigeria defeated Rwanda by 17 runs at the Tafawa Balewa Cricket Oval on Sunday to win the maiden West Africa Trophy.
Nigeria’s victory was a perfect run of 10 games, winning all their nine round-robin matches against Rwanda, Ghana and Sierra Leone before beating the Rwandans again in the final.
After their win on Sunday, Okpe said the tournament will boost their confidence going into the qualifiers.
“It’s really exciting and good for us helping us as a team to be where we need to be ahead of the qualifiers. It’s been a really good outing for us,” Okpe told PRIMANEWS Sports Extra.
“There are big things we need to work on. Generally we have to improve on everything from batting to bowling to make sure we have a good outing in Namibia,” the captain added.
The Yellow Greens also dominated the team of the tournament, producing four out of the eleven players with the likes of Sulaimon Runsewe, Daniel Ajekun, Isaac Okpe and Chimelie Udekewe.
Runsewe also won the batter of the 10-day series while Isaac Okpe was the tournament’s Most Valuable Player.
Another Yellow Greens player, Ridwan Abdulkareem, was also awarded for two brilliant moments of catches while Mohammed Taiwo also went home with a prize as the bowler with a hat-trick of wickets during the series.