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Abiodun Adewale.
Nigeria registered their fourth straight win at the ongoing International Cricket Council’s T20 World Cup Sub-Regional Africa Qualifier B in Kigali, Rwanda on Sunday to brighten their qualification chances.
Steve Tikolo’s side chalked twin wins over Eswatini and Gambia on Sunday to compliment their earlier victories over Mozambique and their West African rivals Sierra Leone in their opening encounters.
Captain of the Nigerian side, Sylvester Okpe, said his team was confident of qualification.
“We had a plan coming to this event and we are on course with it. Barring any major injury and distractions, I am very confident we will pick one of the two tickets here for the next stage,” he said.
In the win against Eswatini, the team set three new international records, including the highest T20i score for Nigeria in any international game ( 221/7), the highest runs by a Nigerian batter in T20i ( Ashmit Shreshta: 76 runs in 49 balls) and fastest ever T20i half century for the country (Isaac Okpe: 53/17).
President of the Nigeria Cricket Federation, Uyi Akpata, said, “We are proud of the team’s performance so far and the pace at which they have conducted themselves so far has been very commendable, especially improvements in the batting department, which we have been working on, and can now see practical improvements.”
Nigeria had beaten Mozambique by eight wickets and ran over Sierra Leone on Friday by six wickets. The record-breaking victory over Eswatini was with 118 runs while the Gambia’s victory was with nine runs.
Nigeria’s next match comes up on Monday (today) against Cameroon, while Ghana and Tanzania encounters are set for Thursday and Friday respectively.
