President of the Nigeria Cricket Federation (NCF), Uyi Akpata announced that the board has set six new targets to scale up the growth of cricket in Nigeria in 2025, Afrosport reports.
Nigeria experienced a successful 2024, winning bronze at the African Games in Ghana and qualifying for the 2025 ICC Women’s U-19 World Cup in Malaysia, marking the second time the country will reach a global tournament.
The NCF’s six key targets include improving facilities nationwide, enhancing commercialisation efforts, and boosting the capacity of the national teams.
“The year 2024 was a very eventful year for us in the global picture. It was a year of consolidation for us, and those things were coming together,” Uyi Akpata said per The Punch.
“The male team beat Namibia for the first time at the African Games in Ghana, and the female team returned with a bronze. Nine members of that team are also heading to Malaysia for the World Cup this year.
“For us, that is not the end; we have now built a foundation, and we are going to be seeing real success in 2025.
“We want to break into the top 20 in female cricket, and we want to make the top 30 in the male game so that we can be in the challenge league where we can play the ODI format.
“We also want to bring in more facilities so we can host more tournaments in the geopolitical zones, which will allow us to focus on equipment and high performance.
“We also want to strengthen female cricket with 1,000,000 entries into the game in the next five years as part of aligning with the ICC global strategy. We now have a brand, and we want to go commercial. We want to attract people and let them know they can invest in the cricket brand.”
Thanks to their victory in the ICC T20 World Cup Africa Sub Regional Qualifier C last November, the Nigerian men’s team, the Yellow Greens, begin 2025 ranked 36th in the world, while the women’s team is ranked 25th.
