Cricket: Team Nigeria confident ahead of U19 World Cup Qualifiers
Daniel Gim, coach of Nigeria’s Under 19 male cricket team, said the team is optimistic and has a chance to qualify for the 2024 U19 World Cup in Sri Lanka.
Gim told the News Agency of Nigeria (NAN) on Thursday in Abuja, that the team made up of 16 players is currently training in Benin ahead of the World Cup Africa Division One qualifiers.
NAN reports that the World Cup qualifiers are scheduled for Tanzania from July 21 with six teams expected to fight for a sole slot at the World Cup in 2024.
Gim, whose team claimed the slot in 2019 which saw Nigeria feature in her first World Cup appearance in 2020 in South Africa, failed to repeat the same feat in 2021.
He said it was due to the failure that the Nigeria Cricket Federation (NCF) sponsored the team on a training tour of India in June.
“We were in India in June just to improve on our play.
“India is one of the top playing cricket nations and provides one of the best platforms in terms of facilities, coaching experience, techniques and more.
“We focused on our spin playing and fast bowling playing abilities while in India and I can say that the boys have improved and are still improving,” he said.
He said that the team had been in camp since July 1 in Benin and will close camp on July 11 to proceed to Lagos, where they will depart for Rwanda two days later.
“We will be heading to another training tour of Kigali, Rwanda before proceeding to Tanzania for the tournament.
“We will be traveling with 14 players out of the 16 in camp and in Kigali, we will play matches with some selected teams there just to give us the feel of the tournament proper.
“Rwanda is not far from Tanzania and we expect that the weather conditions are likely to be similar which will help the players to acclimatize well ahead of the event,” he said.
On the team’s readiness for the tournament, Gim said that the team has the chance this time around to pick the only ticket available.
“Kenya, Sierra Leone, Uganda, Namibia and Tanzania are the teams that Nigeria will be facing.
“The East African countries look to be our biggest challenge ,but we have played teams with better experience and exposure in India than the ones we will be facing in the qualifiers.
“The team has grown in confidence, experience and have all been playing together for a while, so there is team bonding already.
“Some of the players are already playing for the senior national team, which is a bonus to us in terms of experience and exposure.
“All teams in the tournament are strong sides but it will depend on who makes the least errors and the team with mental alertness to win this.
“I think we have prepared and are preparing so well for the tournament and consider this to be another chance to see Nigeria in her second World Cup,” Gim added.
NAN reports that Kenya, Nigeria and Sierra Leone qualified for the tournament after coming top three respectively amongst three other nations in the Division Two Qualifiers in Abuja in September 2022.
Uganda, Namibia, and hosts Tanzania had gained automatic qualification to Division One.
