Remember how the Junior Female Yellow Greens, Nigeria’s female Under-19 cricket team, made an incredible debut at the ICC Under-19 Women’s T20 World Cup in Malaysia this January?

By defeating New Zealand by two runs in the group stage and making it to the tournament’s Super 6 stage, they shocked the cricketing world.

This marks the first time Nigeria’s female squad has appeared at any cricket World Cup, following the men’s Under-19 team’s participation in the 2019 World Cup in South Africa.

As the girls complete their campaign in Malaysia, with an unimportant match against Ireland on Wednesday, Akpata stressed that Nigeria’s achievements came from a committed focus and major investment in women’s and girls’ cricket.

Through the ICC Media Zone, Akpata said, “These gifted girls are surpassing our expectations, even though our development plan called for progress by 2028.” “This shows that we can get results sooner than expected with a large investment.”

He went into detail about the actions done over the last two years, such as offering both male and female players high-performance contracts and offering school-age players scholarship programs. This holistic approach generates a healthy ecology for cricket growth and invites attention from throughout the community.

“We are really proud of these accomplishments, even though we didn’t make it past the second round [at the under-19 World Cup],” Akpata said.
Many fans set their alarms for early morning matches, demonstrating the contagious excitement among them on social media and digital platforms.