Cricket: Nigeria beat Mozambique in opening W’Cup qualifier

Nigeria began their pursuit of a 2024 ICC T20 World Cup spot with a win over Mozambique on Thursday in the Africa Sub-Region B qualifiers at the Gahanga Cricket Stadium, Kigali, Rwanda.

The Yellow Greens won their opening game against the Mozambicans by eight wickets, after making 87 runs in 13.5 overs and dropping two wickets in the process, while Mozambique recorded 86 runs in 20 overs and dropped eight wickets.

Nigeria won the toss of the match and elected to field first, thereby chasing the Mozambicans score in the second innings.

Analyzing the result, a cricket enthusiast and journalist, Seun Ajidagba, credited the Yellow Greens for making a light work of their opponents.

“If you have restricted your opponents to 86 runs in 20 overs, it means that you bowled very well. We put our opponents to bat first, and they scored 86 runs, so, the job was minimally cut out for our boys, they only needed to surpass Mozambique’s runs to win,” Ajidagba stated.

Nigeria’s next game is against Sierra Leone on Friday (today) at the same venue.

In other Africa Sub-Region B results on Thursday, Tanzania also got the better of Sierra Leone by nine wickets, after recording 47 runs in 7.3 overs with one wicket, while Sierra Leone had 57 runs in 11.3 overs but dropped 10 wickets.

Elsewhere at the IPRC Kigali Cricket Oval, Eswatini suffered a 25 runs defeat to Ghana at the IPRC oval in the first of their two games for the day. Eswatini had 151 runs in 20 overs, dropping five wickets while Ghana recorded 176 runs in 20 overs with five wickets as well.

In their second game of the day, Eswatini recovered from defeat and handed Gambia a five wickets defeat. They recorded 12 runs in 17.3 overs with five wickets while Gambia had 122 runs in 20 overs with 20 wickets.

Action continues today with Ghana squaring up against Mozambique, Sierra Leone battle Cameroon, and Mozambique return to face Eswatini.