‘SECA out to revolutionise cricket in South East’

For the past 10 years, Chuma Anosike has been on a journey to grow cricket as a sport of choice in the South East zone. With his Chuma Anosike South East Cricket Championship, Anosike, a lawyer, has taken the sport to some of the remotest corners of Igboland, building interest in the sport among the youths.

Next month, precisely from April 10 to 14, men and women teams from the five states of the zone will gather in Umuahia, Abia State, to vie for honours in the 11th Chuma Anosike Championship, which promises some exciting moments for all lovers of the game in the zone and neighbouring states.

Fielding questions on the championship, Anosike, who is also a member of the Nigeria Cricket Federation (NCF) board, said it is just one of the programmes aimed at restoring the South East as a top player in the country’s cricket.

He described the South East Cricket Association (SECA), an umbrella body of all cricket associations, clubs and players, as another of the agents in the quest to lift the sport in the zone.

He said: “SECA was formed to develop the sport across the zone and not to rival the states. The idea is for the strong states to help those that are not too strong to come up.

“Across the zone, we will see significant movement with states and schools taking cricket back and in the next few months, you will hear of programmes from the zones.” Anosike, who is also chairman of the Anambra Cricket Association, disclosed that schools are vital in what SECA is doing.

“Each chairman is pushing to see that his state allocates lands to it to build its own purely cricket ground. After that, we will try a Private Public Partnership (PPP) model to develop turf wickets. We want to build proper cricket pitches to help our youngsters