The female yellow greens of Nigeria clinched bronze medal at the Women’s T20 tournament of the 13th African Games at the Achimota Oval after a great show against Uganda on Wednesday, March 13, 2024.
Nigeria was full of energy and motivation from the beginning of the game as they won toss for the first time against the Victoria Pearls.
With just a win out of 5 meetings for Nigeria, they threw in Uganda to bat first and gave them the restriction of their life. Peculiar Agboya (4-0-11-3) and Lillian Udeh (4-0-12-2), caused an upset for Uganda in the power play as they settled for 21-4.
Uganda kept their wickets but lacked runs, as they were 30-4 after 10 overs. They wrapped the first innings with 76-8.
It looked an easy win for Nigeria but Uganda gave them a taste of their own medicine in the second innings, with great restriction.
Nigeria were 13-3 at the end of the power play. Nigeria had 32-3 at the 10th over, and boosted their morale for the final 10 but Uganda took 4 more wickets which brought the game to a scary moment.
With 1 more over to go, Nigeria stood at 70-7 and needed 7 runs from 6 deliveries to win. The honors lied on Lucky Piety (13-7) and Adekunle Shola but the name ‘lucky’, did the magic, as she scored two boundary 4’s from 2 balls to give Nigeria victory, winning by 3 wickets, with 4 balls remaining, scoring 78-7 in 19.2 overs.
It was all joy for the female yellowgreens who clinched Bronze at the maiden T20 Women’s tournament at the 13th African Games.
Salomey Sunday was adjudged player of the match with her batting performance 37(50).
Nigeria came to the tournament at the lowest ranked and they took a giant step to let Africa and the World hear of them. They finished runners up in Group A with 3 points, having beaten Namibia, sharing a point with Tanzania and losing to finalist South Africa.
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