Coach John Ayangbemi has revealed the magic behind the Ekiti State Under -17 female team near dominance of the south-west regional zone.
His side were adjudged the best female Cricket team of 202i at the regional qualifiers of the PwC U-17 national Championship last year and they maintained the honour yet again this year by checkmating traditional leaders, Ogun, Oyo and Lagos again at the Cricket pitch of the Liberty stadium.
“We have made good use of the training equipment that the Nigeria Cricket Federation (NCF) has sent across under the developmental project,” he said.“ It has given our training a stronger bite and exposed the players to better equipment than the old and the improvised equipment that we used to train the players with.”
Ayangbemi said most of Ekiti players were exposed to the game from Primary School: “The early exposure to standard equipment for us played a big part on the adoption of the right skills by our players and the consequent good spells we have enjoyed in the region of late.
“It was easy because a number of the girls were consistent with our programme; that’s why we have seen this level of performance back-to-back.
“ We have struggled with the boys’ team as most them are hard to get to commit to the game. But by and by; the good result from the girls have raised the motivation and the commitment from the boys too,” he added.
Ayangbemi said with the rising interest and some level of commitment from the state’s sports council and support by the NCF, they plan to expand their catchment and training regimen beyond the four local governments that have presently benefitted from the programmes.
He believed his wards will make bigger impact having learnt from their maiden national spotlight as action for national title gets underway between February 15 and 20.
“We are not afraid of any team, we are confronting at the national finals, the South-West female Under 17 team is grounded in the basics of the game and we believe the mental side of the game is also well built, ” Ayangbemi noted.