The President of the Nigeria Cricket Federation (NCF), Uyi Akpata, has hinged the country’s rise international cricket to the provision of world-class facilities and the effective grassroots development programme that continues to churn out talented youngsters from across the country for the sport.
Nigeria hosted the ICC Africa U-19 Men’s Cricket World Cup qualifier, which ended in Lagos at the weekend, just one year after its girls featured at the ICC U-19 Women’s World Cup in Malaysia.
These and other recent feats earned Akpata the Sports Administrator of the Year Award at the Sportsville Special Recognition Awards held in Lagos at the weekend.
Speaking after the awards, an excited Akpata described the recognition as a call for more hard work, adding that it has vindicated the efforts the NCF has put into making cricket desirable to every Nigerian.
Akpata said that the foundation laid by the NCF in the last six years has accounted for the growth in the game.
He picked some of the programmes to include promoting the game at all levels (male and female) through grassroots development in the six geo-political zones, upgrading infrastructure in key locations in line with international standards and making modern equipment available to players at all levels, establishing strategic partnerships with other key stakeholders, notable sponsors, media and international cricket bodies, as well as maintaining appropriate governance and finance structure to ensure a sustainable cricket business and also improve players and officials’ quality through regular local and international competitions and developmental events.
He added: “I am super excited because when the Nigerian girls came fifth at the World Cup, most people asked if we played cricket in Nigeria. Now, for someone to be recognised for cricket in the face of many other sports in Nigeria just shows that we, as a board, have been doing something reasonable… our hard work has been recognised and it can only ginger us to do better things as it were.
“We have been following that pillar for the past four years and everything tends to the first one, grassroots development. I have known all the girls that participated in the last World Cup for the past six and seven years since they were about 11, 12 13… the boys in this qualifier the same thing. It is a steady progress.”
He described Nigeria’s performance at the just concluded ICC U-19 Men’s World Cup qualifiers as credible despite the fact that the country failed to pick the ticket to the World Cup.
“Yes, we hosted the qualifier and the boys did not qualify, but you can see that compared to the past, we are now at par with the East Africans, which shows that we have a sustainable programme in place. “When it comes to high performance, we have a good chance of qualifying for the World Cup for both men and women August and September this year. So, it is just about applying oneself and getting the right team to support you to deliver on that.
“The boys team’s failure to qualify for the World is not a failure. So many variables accounted for the inability to pick the ticket as expected. We lost the first game against Namibia narrowly; we would won the game against Kenya if not for the rains.
“I think this is the weakest team we have had at the U-19 level in recent years. Watch those ones that won the last U-17 Championship in Abuja just a month ago. There are many talented players in that team and over the next two years, we are going to strategically place them. It is all about that strategic vision that sees everybody going one step or the other.”
Akpata said that great facilities leads to high performance, which affected the whole ecosystem, adding: “Now, everybody is talking about Nigeria’s excellent facilities. One of the referees said that outside South Africa, Nigeria has the best facilities he has seen in terms of hosting. This is a top referee and guess what, that competition he was referring to in South Africa was a World Cup proper qualifier.”
