Nigeria beats Tanzania, restores hope of Cricket World Cup

‘Nigeria’s Prosper Useni (right) receiving the most valuable player<br />award from ICC Africa’s Gerrie Pennier Van Die after the game against Tanzania…yesterday.

Nigeria’s hope of qualifying for next year’s T20 Cricket World Cup was brightened yesterday when the national team, also known as Yellow Greens, defeated Tanzania at the qualifying competition holding in Windhoek, Namibia.

Nigeria’s hope of making the World Cup were dented on Thursday when the team lost narrowly to Kenya. The Yellow Greens needed a win against Tanzania to restore any hope of a top-two finish from the seven-nation qualifiers. That was what the Sylvester Okpe-led team did yesterday.

Speaking on the game, Okpe said: “It was a win we needed, we have no excuse but to lock down this win. Our match against Kenya wasn’t what we had hoped for and a rain-washed Rwandan encounter that saw us share points didn’t help our cause. So, this was a needed win.”

The game got off with Nigeria fielding, having lost the toss to the Tanzanian side. With a smart use of the power-play, the East Africans rallied Nigeria to 139 runs in their innings.

Captain Abhik Patwa scored 52 runs, off 40 balls, while Ivan Selemani posted 26 from 22 balls containing Nigeria’s pace bowlers in the process. The second innings was marked with tweaks in the team’s traditional batting order that saw Ashmit Shreshta come in at number three, while Prosper Useni and Ridwan Abdulkareem are also promoted up the batting order.

The changes gave Nigeria some freshness with Useni stepping up again to deliver critical boundaries that lifted the team when the run-rate leaked.

He chalked up 31 runs off 19 balls. Sesan Adedeji, Yellow-Green’s number four, put up 24 off 26 balls, while spin-bowler, Abdulkareem