Nigeria’s male national cricket team the Yellow Greens are in Zimbabwe for a week-long training tour ahead of their T20 Regional B World Cup Qualifier series billed for Rwanda.
The Nigerian team arrived in Zimbabwe via the Robert Mugabe Airport on Tuesday and have lined up some warm-up games against Zimbabwe club, Mid-West Rhinos, as the team continues its preparation for the qualifiers.
In the two warm-up games decided on Thursday at the Touchwood Lodges and Kwekwe Sports Club, the Yellow Greens lost the first by 126 – 122 runs while they hit the pace in the second game with a comfortable 102 – 59 runs victory in the second game.
The team will continue its training session at the same centre on Friday before filing out in two more warm up games on Saturday 26 and Sunday 27 November to wrap up the training tour.
National coach of the Nigeria Cricket Federation, Clive Ogbimi told our correspondent that the team is settling well under coach Steve Tikolo.
“We settled in pretty well and the coach is happy with the boys’ effort.
“We chose Zimbabwe because of good conditions for play. The opposition is strong enough to give the chaps a tough time and to stretch our guys. The different variety of bowling will enable our batters to be tested to the limits of their abilities,” Ogbimi told our correspondent.
The Mid West Rhinos is one of the four Zimbabwean cricket franchises. They are a first-class cricket team, based in Midlands Province and the Mashonaland West area. They play their home matches at Kwekwe Sports Club in Kwekwe.
Nigeria will depart Zimbabwe on Monday November 28 and join their adversaries in Rwanda for the qualifiers.
The T20 Regional World Cup qualifier is already on in Rwanda and Nigeria is expected to join from the 28th of November to the 8th of December, as the Yellow Greens are drawn in group B alongside Tanzania, Ghana, Sierra Leone, Mozambique, Eswatini, The Gambia and Cameroon.
The top 2 teams will progress to the 2024 ICC T20 World Cup in the West Indies and the United States.
