Cricket: Nigeria target top three spots in Africa by 2026

Akpata disclosed this while speaking with journalists at the end of the federation’s Annual General Meeting (AGM) in Abuja at the weekend.

“We have an objective for 2026 to play in the men’s World Cup and for the females, it can be as early as next Year.

“Remember we are a surprise entrants to the U19s but unfortunately, we are not there this year. So, we are nearly there.

“Our objective is that by 2026, we want to be recognised as one of the top three cricket playing nations in Africa. That means we will just be behind Zimbabwe and South Africa,” he said.

He said the federation was working on four pillars; participation growth, improved facilities, performance and sponsorship.

He said: “In terms of players, this year, for the first time in four, five years, we had an international tournament here for the men. We had ten matches and we had 10/10.

“To show the progress that we have made, five years ago, we had a similar competition, Ghana beat us in five matches that we played together. This year, we did not only beat them but we demonstrated our dominance over them by miles.

“We are tracking our performance, we just moved a step up from number 8 in Africa to number 7. I believe that by 2026, we will be able to meet our overall aspiration of being a top three in Africa.

“The females is where I am seeing the best move for us. We have moved from 38 to 28, ten steps. We won our invitational. In the middle of December, we are going for the World Cup qualifier and we stand a very big chance for the women to qualify for the ICC T20 World Cup for women.”

Akpata also noted the improvement in the finances of the Federation, adding that there was now financial stability with more sponsors coming in to support the programmes of the federation.

“Series of activities have been planned for commercial partners to say we now have a strong enough cricket brand for them to now partner with us, ” he said.