Kwibuka T20: Nigeria girls impress fans despite loss to Kenya

Nigeria National Female Cricket team put up a brave performance despite losing narrowly to Kenya on Tuesday morning at the Kwibuka T20 tournament in Kigali.

Nigeria Female batted first scoring 108 runs in 20 overs with Salome Sunday and Blessing Etim both from Uyo Cricket league contributing highest individual runs score, 33 and 34 respectively.

Also, Omonye Asika made 11 runs and with Salome both girls played ‘not out’ as Nigeria finished the batting with 108 runs and loss of 5 wickets.

In the second innings, the 2-time champions Kenya played 109 in 18.1 overs and narrowly won by 8 wickets.

Kenyan Queentor Abel became Most Valuable Player as she gave her team 40 runs and 1 dismissal (wicket) while Victoria Abuga scored 33 runs off 36 balls. Kenya captain, Margaret Ngoche took 2 Nigerian wickets to give her side the narrow victory. Cricket fans at home were impressed with Nigerian female performance today in Kigali, Rwanda, especially with the improved strike rate compared with the game against Namibia last Sunday.

The Head Coach of Nigeria Female Cricket team, Coach Onome Oghenevwe explained what made the difference in the game against Kenya.

“The issue regarding Nigerian girls’ performance against Kenya is as a result of few technical input and pep talk we had to do to bring about the results today.

The Nigerian team went against Namibia having landed and went into quarantine for a day and came out to play. They practically didn’t do much, they didn’t train while they were here and so a form of jet lag also contributed to them not giving their best.” Coach Onome told our Correspondent in an exclusive interview.

The Kwibuka T20 tournament is played in round robin stage and Nigeria’s performance is hopeful to improve as they play Botswana and Rwanda soon.