The Nigeria Cricket Federation has announced the 2nd edition of the National U17 Cricket Championship for Boys and Girls, sponsored by PricewaterhouseCoopers. The tournament is scheduled to take place from 7-31 January 2021.

Ahead of the finals, there will be an elimination series among states across the 6 zones in the country and a regional champion will emerge for the National Final scheduled to take place in Benin City, Edo State.

Rivers State will host the elimination series in South-South, Oyo State will host the South West, Enugu State will host the South East, F.C.T will host the North Central, Kaduna State will host the North West and finally, Borno State will host the North East.

The elimination series for the Girls is expected to take place from the 7–11 January followed by that for the Boys from 13-17 January 2021. The finals for the Girls’ category is scheduled for 21 to 24 while the Boys’ final will hold from 27 to 31 January 2021.

The maiden edition which was a major success saw the South-South emerge as the runaway champions in the Girls category while North West emerged champions in the Boys category after a fierce competition from other zones.

Chairman Development and Competitions Committee on the Board of the Federation Mr. Endurance Ofem said: “The National U-17 tournament is one of the most important pathways tournaments of the NCF and I’m glad we have gotten such huge and important partnership with PwC as I look forward to watching the best of our emerging Cricketers ahead of the next Africa U19 World Cup qualifiers.”

Already, states have started turning in their expressions of interest to be part of event as the battle to dethrone the South-South and North-West gathers pace.