Nigeria Women’s U-19 cricket team, known as the Junior Female Yellow Greens, have an extended preparation period for the upcoming 2025 U-19 T20 World Cup Qualifiers due to the rescheduling of the tournament in Kigali, Rwanda.
The tournament, which is the second edition, will take place from January 8 to February 2, 2025, in Malaysia and will feature 16 teams.
Initially, Nigeria was set to compete in a two-group tournament with seven teams each. However, the late inclusion of Zimbabwe led to a restructuring, with the top four sides withdrawing to form a new division.
Based on their rankings, the Junior Female Yellow Greens are now placed in Division 1 of the Africa Qualifiers, which began in Rwanda on Wednesday. Division 2 consists of seven countries—Botswana, Eswatini, Kenya, Lesotho, Malawi, Mozambique, and Sierra Leone—competing against each other in a single round-robin format.
Division 1 will feature Nigeria, Namibia, Rwanda, Tanzania, Uganda, and Zimbabwe and will be held from September 23 to 29 in Kigali, Rwanda. The top two teams from Division 2 will join them for the final tournament.
The winner of the Division 1 Qualifier will secure Africa’s second spot at the World Cup tournament in Malaysia.
They will join the previous edition’s host, South Africa, as well as New Zealand and newcomers Samoa, in Group C of the World Cup finals.
The Nigerian team has been training at the Nigeria Cricket Federation’s High-Performance Centre in Benin City, Edo State, and will move to Lagos to finalize their preparations before departing for Rwanda.
