The third edition of the PwC/NCF Under 17 national cricket tournament will be nothing sort of excitement, great cricket play and array of new talents.
The past one year has been instrumental to the development of female cricket in the country and a zone like the North- Central is not short of improvement.
Of the seven states, including FCT, that make up the zone, Kwara and Kogi have maintained a healthy rivalry as they go toe-to-toe in the development of female cricket in the region.
This is evident in the just concluded zonal qualifiers of the national U-17 event in Abuja, a forthnight ago.
The final game, where both teams slugged it out, was a repeat of the same finals in the previous edition, also hosted by FCT in 2021.
At the time, Kogi had defeated hard-fighting Kwara by one run while Coach Awobola Yusuf reminiscence on that defeat.
“It was a very painful one for us as a team because we were so close to victory,” Yusuf recalled. “I remember talking to the girls then, encouraging them and giving them technical tips on how to stay top but we just lost it in a twinkle of an eye.”
Two weeks ago, Yusuf’s girls had their pound of flesh as Team Kwara earned an emphatic nine wickets victory against their rivals, in Abuja, and thrashed Plateau by a 146 runs victory.
The trio meant only three female teams that featured in the event, as Niger, Nasarawa, Benue and hosts FCT, failed to present a team.
Kwara became eventual champions of the North Central zonal event and have opportunity to lead the zone as well as select good players from their other two rivals, to present a strong opposition against other zones in the finals of the Under 17 tournament beginning from February 15.
In 2021, Kwara’s defeat meant Yusuf would act as an assistant coach, to Edisha Omolaiye, coach of Kogi state team, but the recent victory places Yusuf in pole position to lead and select quality players for North Central.
The zone ended second place in the previous edition in Edo state, with South-South zone, eliminating them in the process.
The erstwhile cricketer, whose team is preparing well ahead of the finals, said his team aims for nothing short of victory.
He added that the team would respect all sides, bearing in mind that grassroot development is springing up rapidly across the country, but would give it all on the field of play.
“Last year, we were second, this year we are looking at the first position but, we know that it is not going to be an easy ride for us or for any team at the tournament.
“But, we have gone back to the drawing board and will try and exploit some of the available avenue for us to win this time around.
“The tournament will get tougher every year and we know that, and we have been putting a lot of touches to our training since we qualifiers ended.
“We know our weaknesses and we working on them,” Yusuf said.”He batting department is what we are trying to improve on. We are no doing very well there, not meeting up to our required target.
“This time we need to put up a very good total (score of runs) in every game, so that we can complement it with our bowling.
“If we can get a good total after batting, and bowl well enough to stop them (our opponents) from scoring big total and put them under that runs that we can actually chase, then we get the game to our advantage,” he stressed.
Against facing a top side like south -south, the coach, acknowledged their strength but hopefully that his team would use their opponents’ disadvantage against them.
“South-south have a very strong developmental programme and they are about the best in the country, in terms of developmental cricket.
“They have all the facilities and equipment but that doesn’t stop us from defeating them. As long as we can play according to our strength, exploit some of their disadvantage and make it favour us.
“We will take every game as it comes but we are optimistic of a victory. We will do our best. The target is victory”, Yusuf reiterated.
The Kwara State coach said he had already compiled the names of his 14-man squad, with the help other coaches, ahead of the tournament.
He said seven players would emerge from Kwara, five from Kogi and two from Plateau state.
Meanwhile, a number of experienced hands would be making a return in this year’s edition for the zone.
Sixteen year-old Queen Joseph, best batter, Sofiat Abdulwaheed (11), also best bowler, Ruqayat Abdulrazaq (15), most valuable player, all individual awards earned at the recent zonal qualifiers.
Also Eunice Onubi (16) and Azizat Sulaimon (15) all players from Kwara State.
With the team level of preparation, it won’t be a surprise, if North Central achieves same feat as the previous year or claim the top spot in the women’s finals of the NCF/PwC event.