ICC U19 CWC: Nigeria Open Campaign With 10-wicket Loss To Australia

Nigeria’s U19 Cricket national team’s much-anticipated debut at the ICC U19 Cricket World Cup ended in a ten-wicket loss against Group B opponents and three-time champions Australia at the Diamond Oval in Kimberly, South Africa on Monday.

The Junior Yellow Greens won the toss and elected to bat first. Miracle Ikaigbe and Runsewe Suleimon opened the batting for the team and very quickly Suleimon was out just after 2 balls.

Nigeria’s U19 cricket national team was 12 runs for the loss of 3 wickets in 5 overs and after 10 overs were 28 runs for the loss of 3 wickets.

Wickets fell in quick successions and Nigeria could not muster a decent partnership and were bowled out for 61 runs in 30.3overs.

Elijah Olaleye was the only spark in the Nigerian team with 21 runs off 53 balls.

Tanveer Sangha was the star performer with the ball for Australia with an impressive haul of 5 wickets for 14 runs in 10 overs with 4 maidens in the process.

In the second innings, Australia made light work of run chase racing to 50 runs in just 7 overs and the Junior Yellow Greens were not impressive on the pitch either with dropped catches, miss-field and lost run-out chances.

Australia finished the match with 10 wickets intact scoring 62 runs.

Their opening pair of Fanning .S and Fraser-McGurk scored 30 and 23 runs respectively to take Australia home.

The result puts Nigeria bottom of the group with Australia who had lost their opening match to the West Indies on Friday taking the top spot.

England take on the West Indies in the other game in the group.

Nigeria will take on West Indies in their second match on Wednesday, 22 January 2020.