By Victor Kanayo
Team Nigeria has continued its blistering performance in the ongoing International Cricket Council (ICC) U19 World Cup Africa Division Two Qualifier with a massive victory against Sierra Leone on Tuesday in Abuja.
The host country with two wins previously, won two matches versus Rwanda and Botswana in the opening and second game.
With the latest victory over Sierra Leone by 11 runs, the Nigerian cricket team now top Group B.
Talking about the encounter, Nigeria won the toss and elected to bat in a match where the winners will emerge group leaders after two wins in two matches earlier by both sides.
In the beginning, usual suspects Paul Pam and Selim Saliu opened the batting order for Nigeria.
They put up an excellent partnership to score a 100 for the team, before Pam was sent to the stands in the 27th over.
Pam’s exit was the breakthrough Sierra Leone needed to dismiss the hosts successfully in the next 20 overs, limiting Nigeria to 184 runs, all out in 47.4 overs.
The second innings meant Nigeria needed to defend the score against a strong-willed Sierra Leonean side with captain John Bangura steering the ship.
Bangura, who played 87 runs not out in 118 balls, raced the run score for Sierra Leone before Prosper Useni halted their pace, claiming six wickets in the process.
The visitors scored 173 all out in 41.5 overs.
Useni emerged Player of the match with a bowling statistics of six wickets, 26 runs in 6.5 overs.
Sierra Leone who finished Group B runners-up will now clash with Kenya, who are winners of the two-team Group A in the qualifiers’ semi-finals on Thursday October 6, 2022.
After topping group B, Nigeria will face Malawi, the other group’s runners-up in the semi-final stage of the competition with a total of six participating teams.
The top three teams in the competition will secure tickets to the next qualifying phase.
Heritage Times HT reports that initially, eight countries will scheduled to take but two failed to show up.
