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By: Abiodun Adewale.
Nigeria’s male U-19 cricket team, the Junior Yellow Greens, are making the most of their training tour of India, which is part of their preparations for the next phase of the 2024 ICC U-19 Cricket World Cup qualifiers in Tanzania in July, The PUNCH reports.
The U-19 Cricket World Cup is scheduled for Sri Lanka next year.
The team departed Nigeria last Monday, and after over a week of training and test games at the CWC Cricket Institute, Mumbai, India, head coach, Daniel Gim, says his side is taking shape ahead of the qualifiers.
“It has been a great outing so far. The idea is to be exposed to another level of cricket outside Nigeria, and the Omtex ICWC Cricket Institute has so far offered us modern facilities to improve the players, and for sure if weaknesses are tackled, the whole team becomes better and formidable,” Gim told The PUNCH.
The team has played two friendly games and lost both against a selected side of Omtex ICWC Cricket Institute.
“The idea here is not to get weak teams to play and win, but to get beaten and learn from the mistakes that resulted in the loss. But in a few days, we have achieved tremendous improvement in the team, and we believe we will be ready for the qualifiers,” the coach added.
Nigeria secured qualification from Division 2 to Division 1 in October 2022 during the first phase of the qualifiers in Abuja and targeting the only qualification ticket in the Africa qualifiers in Tanzania in what will be a repeat of the feat they achieved in 2019 when they qualified for the ICC U-19 World Cup, which was played in South Africa in January of 2020.
The Junior Yellow Greens will face old foes Uganda, Kenya, Sierra Leone, Tanzania and Namibia in a winner-takes-all contest in Tanzania.
