The Nigeria Cricket Federation has released the final roster for the senior women’s cricket team with 14 players as well as two others on standby for their 2024 ICC T20 World Cup Africa qualifier which will be played from December 7 to 17 in Uganda.
Head coach of the team, Leke Oyede, dropped the final squad after inviting 18 players to camp in one of the Nigeria Cricket Federation’s high-performance centres in Benin, Edo State.
Longest serving and most experienced player in the team Blessing Etim will lead the team as captain and she is joined by other familiar names including Sunday Salome, Esther Sandy, Lucky Piety, Victory Igbinedion, Favour Eseigbe and Christabel Chukwuonye.
Others include wicket keepers Sarah Etim and Abigail Igbobie, batting sensation Lilian Udeh, Rukayat Abdulrasaq, Peculiar Agboya, Adekunle Adeshola and Rachael Samson. The standby players are Esther Odunayo and Anointed Akhigbe.
“We have had adequate time to prepare for the qualifiers and the mission means a lot to not just me but the players as well. We want to play at the World Cup and we believe we can measure up with any team we will face in Uganda,” Oyede told our correspondent.
Seeking a first appearance at the T20 World Cup, Nigeria are in Group B of the qualifying series along with Namibia, hosts Uganda and arch-rivals Rwanda. Group A teams are Zimbabwe, Tanzania, Kenya and Botswana.
The top two teams from each group will advance to the semi-finals while the finalists will pick the tickets to play at the 2024 World Cup in the United Arab Emirates and Bangladesh.
Nigeria’s first match is against Namibia on Sunday December 10 at the Entebbe Cricket Oval, Uganda.
