Nigeria Content Online

After two weeks of
intensive training in South Africa, Nigeria’s national cricket team,
will today in Gaborone start their quest to qualify from the Pepsi ICC
World Cricket League Division 7 to Division 6 when they confront
Norway. The team had fallen short in the same quest in 2009 when they
came fourth on the island of Guernsey.

Since that time the
team has gone through some changes. The side will be led into battle by
the new captain, Endurance Ofem, and have a new coach in Sean Philips,
who also doubles as a player plus the addition of Ramit Gil and Femi
Oduyebo.

In the two friendly matches played in Benoni, the team won both very convincingly and confidence has been boosted by these wins.

When NEXTSports got
across to the captain, Ofem, he was confident that this time around,
the team will make Nigerians proud. Ofem said, “It has been 15 days of
hard work by the team and management team and within that time, we
played two friendly games and won both.

Nigerian bowlers
had a bowling net session with the South Africa and Bangladesh A sides
on Thursday before the final friendly game on Friday.

Ofem also added
that: “All has been good in camp and every member of the team is
looking forward to the tournament in Botswana.”

The team travelled
to Botswana on Friday and Ofem was joined by the other captains for a
media session on Saturday. The session took place at the Gaborone Sun
Hotel, Gaborone in the afternoon.

Host nation,
Botswana are captained by Akrum Chand, Germany is led by Asif Khan,
Japan has Masaomi Kobayashi, Hisham Mirza leads the Kuwaitis and Norway
are captained by Damien Shortis.

These teams from
Germany, Kuwait, Nigeria, Japan, Norway join hosts Botswana for the
tournament which will be played from May 1 to 8. After the round robin
tournament, the top two sides will be promoted to Pepsi ICC World
Cricket League Division 6.

Ofem has courted
the prayers of Nigerians whilst promising that the players will put in
their best. “What other business do you think we have in these two
countries other than to bring smiles to the faces of Nigerians but we
will need to be remembered in prayers and we pray not to let the nation
down.”

The matches will be hosted at three grounds in Gaborone, namely the
Botswana Cricket Association Ovals 1 and 2 and the Lobatse Cricket
Ground and all the matches will kick off at 9:15am local time (10:15am
Nigerian time).