Nigeria tackles Sierra Leone as T20I Women Tournament begins

cricket. Photo:Getty Image

The Tafawa Balewa Square cricket oval will come alive today when Nigeria’s women team meet Sierra Leone in their opening game of the T20I Invitational Tournament by 9:30 a.m.

The West African derby is a familiar feud amongst cricket stakeholders and fans albeit Nigeria taking the upper hand in their recent meetings.

Most recently, the duo met at the ICC Women’s T20 World Africa Qualifier in Botswana in September 2021, with the Female Yellow Greens claiming a five-wicket victory.

This was no surprise to cricket enthusiasts as Nigerian women team is ranked 37th in the world by the ICC, seven places ahead of their counterparts.

However, women’s cricket, for both sides, is still developing and tournaments like the Invitational is one that could improve their level of play and overall standard among other member nations.

Nigeria is confident ahead of this match with a lot of preparation under her belt. Some of the players have been engaged in various tournaments prior to this competition with a few that participated in the National Under-17 championship in Abuja in February.

The national team has also spent over three weeks in camp, drilled and tuned into competition mode by coaches Onome Oghenekevwe and Ibodeme Theohilus, under the supervision of Asanka Gurusinha, the country’s Head Coach and High Performance Manager

Etim Blessing, one of Nigeria’s finest cricketers and captain of the team, is looking forward to an improvement from her record breaking performance of four maiden overs, four wickets 0 runs conceded in the last tournament against Cameroun.

Notably, she was Player of the Match in the game against Sierra Leone, while in Botswana in 2021, but her individual contributions needs to be transformed