Nigeria Wins First West Africa Cricket Trophy

Nigeria’s Men Cricket Team, The Yellow-Green completed a clean sweep at the first West African Trophy concluded at the Tafawa Balewa Square in Lagos on Sunday by winning all their ten matches at the event.

On Sunday, they routed Rwanda to 17 runs victory, their fourth win over the East Africa side during the twenty-match series that kicked off on Wednesday, October 4, 2023.

Nigeria had qualified for the finals of the West Africa Trophy after winning all her round-robin matches, which included playing Ghana, Sierra Leone, and Rwanda.

The tenth match was a placement that pitched Nigeria, with 18 points against Rwanda, who had the second-highest points (8) from four matches. Ghana also had four wins but had a lower Net Run Rate. The third-place match then pitted Ghana against Sierra Leone, who had only managed one win from nine matches for the 3rd and 4th classification matches.

Sierra Leone snatched a six-wicket win from Ghana in the first match of the closing day of the West Africa Trophy, before Nigeria’s clinching of the Tournament Trophy with her tenth 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.

Nigeria’s Isaac Okpe emerged as the Most Valuable Player of the Tournament and bowler of the tournament with 17 wickets. Another Nigerian, Sulaimon Runsewe won the batter of the event, with 229 runs off ten games. He also won the fielder with nine dismissals from ten matches.