Maiden South South Cricket League ends in Benin

The first women’s cricket league in the country, the South-South Women League will end this weekend with a Super Four playoff to crown the winner of the inaugural season in Benin City, Edo State.

Chairman of the Edo State Cricket Association and member, representing the South-South Zone on the Nigeria Cricket Federation (NCF) board, Mr. Uyi Akpata, said, “This event is a landmark event for us and the country. In fact, it is the first of its kind in West and North Africa. Cricket development should not leave out any gender and since we saw the response from the girls during our grassroots project, we just felt it was ripe for a separate platform to be created for them.”

The event, scheduled to hold today and tomorrow at the Edo Boys High School, Benin City, will parade two top teams from each of the two zonal classifications of the preliminary rounds.

The eight club league had featured three clubs from Edo State, two from Akwa Ibom and one each from Rivers, Bayelsa and Delta States. All the teams were grouped in two (Zones A and B) with each side playing from either The University of Port Harcourt cricket pitch in Rivers State or Iyoba College in Benin-City, Edo State.

Adolor Amazons and Ekpoma Supernovas qualified as top teams from Zone A, while Pathfinders from Rivers State and Smashers from Akwa Ibom State qualified from zone B to complete the teams scheduled for this weekend’s Super Four series at the Edo Boys High School High-Performance Center in Benin City, in Edo State.

Tomorrow, winners from yesterday’s matches will play in the final, while losers will meet in the third-place match.

“We intend to make this part of our continuous growth plan such that talents discovered throughout state-wide coaching grassroots projects will find room to develop, mature, and be mentored into perhaps the state team and other available opportunities,” Akpata added.