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By: Abiodun Adewale.
Twenty years after their father played for Blackheath Cricket Club in the United Kingdom before returning to Nigeria, 14-year-old Moses Ogbimi and his younger brother, Joseph, 12, are honing their cricket skills at the facility as they also hope to play for Nigeria someday.
Their father Clive Ogbimi, a former star of Nigeria’s Yellow Greens, is the first coach to take a Nigerian team to a cricket World Cup when he led the male U-19 team to South Africa in 2019.
Moses and Joseph’s interest in cricket comes naturally as their father served as the national coach of the Nigeria Cricket Federation before moving back to the UK earlier this year – and he’s still engaged with the NCF from the diaspora.
But it takes more for interest to become passion, and that is what the chaps are riding on as they continue their journey to becoming better than their father.
“Let’s say they were inspired because my enthusiasm for the game got to them. Being a coach perhaps helped to hone the skills,” coach Ogbimi told PUNCH Sports Extra.
Moses and Joseph were involved in the Edo State youth development programme tagged ‘Back to School Training’. Like every other child in the state and other states which had the programme, they were involved before adding more at their courtyard at home in Benin.
After cutting their teeth at home, now they are in the UK, where their father played between 2003 and 2007.
Moses is a left-hand middle order batsman and right-hand left-spin bowler.
“I was just invited to Kent’s U-14 assessment trials and I’ve been very excited with how I’ve played so far and on different grounds which I’ve also adapted. My stay here has been awesome and I hope to become a great player one day,” Moses told PUNCH Sports Extra.
His brother, Joseph, is an all-rounder who bowls with the right hand and bats with his left.
Having featured for Blackheath, Joseph was recently called up to the Kent Academy U-12 team and featured in two games before he and his brother participated in another winter trials.
In some of the practice and match videos shared with PUNCH Sports Extra, both boys earned applause from their teammates with their sharp bowling and fierce batting skills.
Academically, Moses and Joseph have nothing to worry about as their schedule between South Bank Academy, their school, is balanced with their cricket.
Apparently, there is a huge difference in the development of the lads and their father. While the boys have been exposed to competitions in Nigeria in their formative stages, coach Ogbimi recounts his difficult but interesting start to playing cricket from secondary school to the university.
“They have started pretty early, say about six years old and they’ve been following the learning process of video analysis, technical shaping up, which I’ve followed up from them, even from Benin. I didn’t go through all that. I ordinarily just met cricket at the Federal Government College Warri and in University of Lagos as well. I had to do a lot of hard work privately and made it into the national team pretty much at 21.”
Realising how tough it was for him, he knew he had to help the boys shape their interest without putting pressure on them.
“They are growing through the development pathway and its structural. Obviously if they continue in the game, they would develop to become national team players. I expect them to be a lot better and achieve a lot more than I did,” Ogbimi said.