BY JUDE OPARA, ABUJA
In a concerted move to revive the fortunes of cricket in the country, female players from five zones of Nigeria are now in Abuja for the John Abebe Cricket championship which is taking place this weekend in the nation’s capital.

President of the Nigeria Cricket Federation, Emeka Onyema told journalists in Abuja that the championship is one way of ensuring that the game of cricket gets back to where it used to be in the country some years past. He also said that the male version of the championship known as the Henry Abebe

Nigerian cricketers

championship is slated to take place next weekend in Abuja.

Onyema however regretted that all the zones of the country are participating in the tournament except for the troubled North East zone which is still battling with the Islamist insurgents, Boko Haram.

According to him, cricket is a huge income earner if properly developed hence the resolution of his board to go the extra mile to create awareness of the sport starting from the secondary schools because of his firm belief that sports belongs to the youths.

“Sports is supposed to create employment, enhance national accolade and to strengthen and discipline the individual and that is why we at the NCF are doing our best revive the fortunes of cricket which is the second best earning sport in the world. What we intend to do here is to get our cricket to the stage where the best from the world will be coming to Nigeria to play cricket and you can imagine the huge foreign income that will bring to the country”.

Onyema, also revealed that his federation has received a parcel of land from the National Sports Commission (NSC) for the construction of a world class cricket pitch in the country which will match any other pitch anywhere in the world.

He added that the sport has no pitch because the one in use today only belongs to the baseball, “I used to believe we have a pitch until when in wrote the NSC for approval to upgrade the ground and I was told that it belongs to baseball”.

Also speaking at the press conference, national cricket team captain, Kunle Adegbola said that cricket is just evolving in the country hence the need for every stakeholder to join hands with the cricket board to transform the sport.