BY BOCKARIE ALIEU
232NEWS, FREETOWN —
On the road to the ICC Division1 U-19 Men’s World Cup Qualifier tournament Nigeria defeated Sierra Leone U-19 national team in a very tight match in Abuja Nigeria in the Division2 tournament.
In the division2 tournament, Sierra Leone ended in 3rd position, Nigeria in 2nd behind champions Kenya.
The three countries automatically qualified for the Division 1 qualifier tournament in Tanzania.
Just after the tournament, the Chairman of Cricket Sierra Leone Francis Samura decided to hire the service of a foreign coach to train the young boys and take them to the Division 1 tournament.
They hired Kenneth Masinga from South Africa who is familiar with the Sierra Leone Cricket players both men and women. Kenneth traveled to Sierra Leone and trained the various national teams including the U-19 team.
The team traveled to Tanzania a few days before the kick-off of the tournament to get used to the weather and play some friendly matches.
While in Tanzania, they played one friendly match against Tanzania combined team which they lost.
On the side of Nigeria, the U-19 team first traveled to India for a few days of training and later head to Rwanda to continue training and play a few friendly matches.
In Tanzania, on the second day of the tournament, the two West African countries met again.
Sierra Leone won the toss and opted to field first allowing Nigeria to bat first. Nigeria open batsmen Salim Salau and Paul Pam started well but just when the partnership was about to settle Salim with 10 runs went out in the 3rd overs.
The Nigerians brought in Damian Okeke to rebuild another partnership. The partnership played for the next 5 overs no wicket but with just 10 runs scored.
In the 10th overs, Nigeria was 23 runs loss of 1 wicket. Wicket started falling when they started facing the spin bowlers of Sierra Leone.
It got worse for the Nigerians in the 21 overs when they were 6 wickets down with 51 runs. The Nigerians were all out in the 27th overs with 73 runs.
Sierra Leone replied with 74 runs losing 1 wicket in 17.5 overs. In the batting for Nigeria, Paul Pam scored 22 runs off 45 balls, Chijioke Okeke 10 runs off 29 balls and Redwan 3 runs off 18 balls.
In the bowling for Sierra Leone, George Sesay took 4 wickets and conceded 15 runs with 32 dots balls and 1 maiden in 7.0 overs, Raymond Coker 3 wickets for 15 runs in 7.0 overs and Aliya Kamara 2 wickets 35 dots balls and conceived 30 runs.
In the batting for Sierra Leone in the second innings, Raymond Coker scored 22 runs off 55 balls, Alusine Turay scored 38 runs not out off 51 balls with 5, 4 runs and Emmanuel Mansaray 2 runs off 1 ball.
The Nigerians gave away 12 extra runs to Sierra Leone. Sierra Leone won the match by 9 wickets with Raymond Coker announced as the man of the match.
Sierra Leone engaged Kenya in their second match last Tuesday and lost to the Kenyans by 4 wickets.
In the other match Nigeria lost to Uganda by 37 runs. The Young Patriots will rest today and they will face Namibia on the 27th July 2023 and on the 29th July 2023, they will face the defending champions Uganda.
Sierra Leone will play their last match against the host country Tanzania on the 30th July 2023. The five countries are playing for one slot that will represent Africa in the ICC U-19 World Cup Tournament.
