Nigeria’s Female Yellow Greens rose from their 49 runs defeat to Tanzania on Match Day 2 of the ongoing NCF Women’s T20i Invitational Tournament to hand Rwanda a five-wicket defeat yesterday at the Tafawa Balewa Cricket Oval, Lagos.
Captain Blessing Etim won the toss and chose to field, leaving Marie Diane of Rwanda and her teammates to bat first.
A miss-fielding in the first over gave Nigeria a shaky start. However, the girls picked up form when teenage star, Shola Adekunle sparked a deadly bowling squad against Rwanda. The 16-year-old Shola took four wickets with precision, while Peculiar Agboya and Favour Eseigbe grabbed three and two wickets respectively. The shock kept Rwanda’s total runs at 95 as they lost nine wickets in 20 overs (95/9).
The second-inning chase for Nigeria started on a good note when Assistant Captain Favour Eseigbe and Esther Sandy soaked the pressure from Rwanda. Favour and Esther’s partnership gave Nigeria 58 runs, before Esther’s wicket fell.
Rwanda saw an opportunity to tighten the screw and soon pressure shifted to Nigeria with four successive falls of wickets (Esther Sandy at 11.4, Agboya Peculiar at 12.2, Etim Blessing at 12.4, and Piety Lucky at 14.4).
It took the pair of Salome Sunday and Christabel Chukwuonye to stabilise the team and drive them to the needed five wickets victory. Nigeria finished at 99/5 win, with Shola Adekunle pocketing the N150,000 prize for the Player of the Match award.
Nigeria’s coach, Leke Oyede, said the team’s bench has taken their learnings from the victories, and also from the loss.
“The event is good for us, and is helping us make tweaks here and there, which I believe is good as we progress and prepare for crucial events ahead,” he said.
Tanzania also picked their second win at the event with a 98-run victory over Sierra Leone yesterday, which leaves the West Africans as the only team without a win so far.
Matches resume today with Tanzania and Rwanda locking horns at 10.15a.m., while Nigeria takes on Sierra Leone immediately after.
