By Daily Sports Nigeria on September 14, 2023

Head coach of Nigeria’s male senior cricket team Steve Tikolo is confident the Yellow Greens can qualify for the 2024 T20 World Cup in the West Indies, adding that they must play more high-profile tune up games to be fully ready for the second phase of the African qualifiers in Namibia from November 20 to December 1, The PUNCH reports.

Nigeria qualified to compete for a place in West Indies 2024 after finishing joint top in the first phase of the Africa qualifiers last year.

The Yellow Greens have been training at the Tafawa Balewa Cricket Oval in Lagos.

Tikolo, who doubles as the high-performance manager for other national teams, said more games would be necessary due to the cancellation of a major African tournament, which the team had been preparing for, recently.

“The progress is good in terms of our training but we have not had so many international matches. We were supposed to go to Kenya but it didn’t happen due to logistics and we were in camp for the African Cup in South Africa, which has been cancelled too,” the Kenyan said.

“So, we just have to play practice matches against some good opposition, which we are trying to plan, now that the African Cup has been cancelled. We have to either bring in teams here to play us or we travel to play against some other countries,” Tikolo told The PUNCH.

The coach was appointed as Nigeria’s high-performance manager last year, and he made some impact by qualifying for the next phase of the qualifiers while also giving technical assistance to the Female Yellow Greens winning the NCF T20 invitational in April.

“As the high-performance manager, it is my duty to work with the other coaches to get Nigerian cricket to a respectable level. I get a lot of support from the other coaches. Since I joined, we’ve tried to change a number of things in the way we play and the way we practice.

“I’m happy with the way things are with the men and women’s team. For me it’s about playing a positive brand of cricket and that is what we are instilling into both teams and we can see the results.”

Nigeria will square up against hosts Namibia, Zimbabwe, Uganda, Kenya, Rwanda and Tanzania as the top two teams join South Africa to become Africa’s representatives at the tournament next year.

South Africa have qualified for the 2024 tournament by virtue of their finish at the 2022 edition.

Source Punch Ng

Posted September 14, 2023

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