Nigeria’s Men Cricket Team, The Yellow-Green, completed a clean sweep of the maiden West African Trophy, which concluded on Sunday at the Tafawa Balewa Square in Lagos, by winning all 10 matches.
On Sunday, they defeated Rwanda by 17 runs, their fourth victory against the East African side in the twenty-match series, which began on Wednesday, October 4, 2023.
Nigeria qualified for the West Africa Trophy finals after winning all of her round-robin matches against Ghana, Sierra Leone, and Rwanda.
The ninth match pitted Nigeria (18 points) against Rwanda, who had the second-most points (8) from four matches. Ghana had four wins as well, but had a lesser Net Run Rate. The third-place match matched Ghana against Sierra Leone, which had only won one of nine matches in the third and fourth classifications.
Sierra Leone defeated Ghana by six wickets in the first match on the final day of the West Africa Trophy, before Nigeria clinched the Tournament Trophy with her eleventh win.
The President of the Nigeria Cricket Federation said, “It is a very successful experiment. We are glad to have the national team that complimented all our efforts with a sterling performance”.
He added that the Federation had planned several platforms to expose the national teams, including hosting a major home-grown event, and the West Africa Trophy came in handy in that respect.
“We have a number of our partners to thank, including Dafabet, Sparkle, Nigeria Breweries, and the Lagos State government. We are hoping we would able to engage more of our corporate partners in the project of promoting the game of Cricket across Nigeria,” he added.
With 17 wickets, Nigeria’s Isaac Okpe was named the tournament’s Most Valuable Player and bowler. Sulaimon Runsewe, another Nigerian, won the batter of the event, scoring 229 runs in ten games. He also won the fielder award, with nine dismissals in ten games.
