BENIN CITY – The Edo State male and female U-17 cricket teams, emerged champions respectively, at the PWC national cricket under 17 South-South zonal qualifiers, which took place in Benin City.
In the male category of the qualifiers, that took place at the Edo boys high school Cricket pitch, in Benin City, the Edo State defeated Akwa Ibom by 10 wickets. In the first innings, the Edo State team had chased down their 51 runs target in the 15th over having run the Akwa Ibom team out for 50.
Earlier in the qualifiers, the Edo State team defeated Delta state by 2 wickets in the preliminary round (Super Knockout) that took place yesterday. In the Semifinals that took place today, they defeated Rivers state by 87 runs.
At the Iyoba girls college where the female qualifiers took place, the Edo State team led by Coach Guobadia Esewi Peter also became champions. They defeated a hard fighting Rivers state team by 37 runs. The final that saw The Edo State ladies winning the toss and electing to bat, also saw them scoring 90 runs for the loss 7 wickets in 15.0 overs in the first innings. In the second innings, they ran out their opponents for 50 to emerge victorious.
As a result of these outstanding performances, the Edo State teams (male and female) have been rewarded by the Nigerian Cricket federation (NCF) with 7 of their players making the South-South team that will be playing at the National finals billed to hold later in the year. The Coaches weren’t also Left out, as Coach Theophilus Ibodeme of the Edo State male team and Coach Guobadia Esewi Peter of the female team will be leading the South-South teams respectively to the finals billed to be played that the Abuja National stadium from the 15th of February, 2022.
