Nigeria Cricket Federation flags off national championship

The newly-elected board of the Nigeria Cricket Federation (NCF) will host the 2017 National Women’s and Men’s Championship across five geo-political zones of the country with 26 states participating.

The president of the Federation, Adams Ukwenya, said the event will bring together cricketers from across the country and provide a platform to showcase budding talents from all the regions.

“The National Women’s and Men’s Championship is intended to help galvanize interest across the nation and ultimately be our nursery for national team players. We are all looking forward to it and I am very pleased with the interest I can see building up across the states,” he said.

The new Board of the Federation had earlier this year organized a National U-17 championship under the auspices of the National Youth Games in Ilorin.

Kaduna and Akwa Ibom state won gold medals in the Male and Female categories respectively while Edo won the silver medal in both categories. Other winning States were Anambra State (3^rd Female) and Oyo State (3^rd Male).

The National Championships is a senior level competition which started with the Women’s regional qualifiers from Friday 10^th to Sunday 12^th November.

The Women’s finals will be played this weekend November 17 to 19 at the Cricket Oval in Abuja, FCT.

The five regional champions (Anambra, Edo, Kaduna, Oyo and Niger) will slug it out with host FCT for the national finals scheduled for Sunday 19^thNovember.

The Men’s event is scheduled to commence on Thursday 30^th November with preliminary rounds across the 5 zones. Eight (8) teams will emerge to play quarter finals in Lagos and Ibadan simultaneously with semi-finals on the 8^th December and the Championship finals on the 9^th December, at the TBS Oval, Lagos.

The Men’s Championship will be competed for by South West: Oyo, Lagos, Ogun, Osun, and Ondo; South South: Rivers, Bayelsa, Edo, Akwa Ibom and Delta; South East: Anambra, Imo, Ebonyi and Enugu; North Central: Plateau, Niger, FCT Abuja, Kogi and Kwara; North West: Kaduna, Zamfara, Kebbi, Sokoto, Jigawa and Kano.

According to NCF President Ukwenya, “The NCF National Championships will certainly bring the 2017 season to a very exciting close while we earnestly prepare for a more robust, tournament-filled 2018”.