Okpe lists gains of NCF’s player-exchange programme

Nigeria’s cricket national team captain, Sylvester Okpe, believes the recent one-month players’ exchange programme, which took three of the country’s top players to Hollywood Dolphins Academy in Durban, South Africa, has given perspective to their training regimen.

The skipper, who made the trip alongside Nigeria’s opening bowler, Isaac Okpe, and Sesan Adedeji, said, “one thing that I can say is that it was a necessary exposure that has impacted in no small measure to our confidence and general approach to the game.”

The Kaduna-based swing-bowler, who led the team that qualified the country for the first appearance at the U-19 Cricket World Cup in January 2020, admitted that for obvious reasons, Nigeria Cricket Federation (NCF) cannot afford to keep the national team in the camp all-year round like some nations do, adding, however, that it can explore relationships like recently done to place key players in more challenging leagues globally.

“I can tell you that despite the toll on us mentally and physically, it was worth the experience. I think our next camping and outing will speak more for us,” he added.

While in South Africa, the players were involved in a Winter League campaign and also had sessions at the High-Performance centre.

According to Okpe, “We did more of batting, as it is the area, we needed to make more improvement on, and I can tell you, we saw a visible change in each player’s performance. Sesan (Adedeji) had a 50 in one of the matches that we played and when Isaac (who was a few days late to the training), joined, he did 41 runs off 30 balls, that is fairly strong stat.”

Okpe said he took three wickets in their second game, while Adedeji took two. “It all shows we got something off the exposure. And I wish we could get more players on this type of project.”

The ‘Yellow-Green’ will not see international action till September 2022 when the much-postponed African Cricket Association (ACA) Cup is hosted in Benoni, South Africa.

Okpe said he believes the newfound form of the trio will help Nigeria’s returning senior men’s coach, Uthe Ogbimi, to raise the form of the team.

“There is the part that we have to infuse what we learnt in SA to the larger team. It’s teamwork… we hope to be better really. I hope we can get the team to converge soonest and get a lot of playing time to optimise our form.”