St. Helena’s cricket team are early birds

The men’s cricket team of the island nation of St Helena have become the first side to arrive in Nigeria for the ICC Sub-Regional World Cup qualifiers, which will hold in Abuja from November 23 to 28, 2024.

Speaking on the competition on Sunday, Tournament Director, Emeka Igwilo, said the arrival of the St. Helena team sets the event’s plan to full implementation mode.

“The St. Helena’s team arrived on Sunday, November 17, ahead of their schedule partly so they could acclimatise to the Nigerian climate ahead of the qualifiers. And that has activated all the tournament operations plans.”

Igwilo said Nigeria’s team, which has been camped at the nation’s capital, will be joined by four other countries in the crucial encounters.

“Now we have Botswana, Eswatini, and two other West African neighbors, Cote D’Ivoire and Sierra Leone to complete the list later in the week.”

The opening encounter of the 15-match qualifier will see Eswatini take on Botswana at the Oval 1 of the NCF Cricket Pitch inside the Moshood Abiola National Stadium in Abuja on Saturday, November 23 at 9:30 a.m.

Nigeria’s first test at the event will be against St Helena on Oval 2 later in the afternoon, while Cote D’Ivoire will simultaneously take on Sierra Leone at pitch one. Igwilo said the event will see the two Ovals being put to maximum test.

“Our team has done a great deal of work to put the facilities in the best shape and we look forward to the great games that would be played on them.”
Over 200 players, officials, and ad-hoc workers will be on call all week at the event that will put Nigeria at the centre stage of global cricket action.

“The International Cricket Council (ICC) officials are superintending over qualifiers and that makes this event one of the most important cricket events going on globally,” Igwilo added.

The event will round off on March 28, 2024, with the best two teams from the series qualifying for the next stage of the 2025 Cricket T20 World Cup.