Nigeria Cricket Federation (NCF) will organize the second edition of National U-17 Cricket Championship from January 15 to February 7, 2021 to develop the next generation of cricketers, who will represent Nigeria in domestic and international tournaments in the coming future.
The tournament will be sponsored by PricewaterhouseCoopers (PwC) Nigeria, and will see the zonal qualifications conducted for both girls and boys towards the finals week. Girl’s zonal qualification will be held from January 15th – 17th, 2021, followed by the Finals week from from January 29th – 31st, 2021, while the boy’s zonal qualification is slated for January 21th – 24th, 2021, with the finals week scheduled from February 04th – 07th, 2021.
States across the six regions in the country will battle in the zonal championships, from which the regional champions will advance to the national final slated for Benin City, Edo State. Rivers State will host the elimination series in the South-South region, Oyo State will host the South-West, Enugu State will host the South-East, Abuja (Federal Capital Territory) will host the North-Central, Kaduna State will host the North- West and Borno State will host the North-East series.
Nigeria Cricket Federation (NCF) are looking for more development in the youth categories after their success in participating in their maiden ICC U19 Cricket World Cup in 2020 in South Africa. Nigeria are scheduled to host the ICC Africa regional finals for the 2022 ICC U19 Cricket World Cup in Sep 2021, and the National Championships will be a crucial tournament for players to lift their performances to get noticed by the U19 coaching staff.
Similarly, for girls, the prospect of playing in the inaugural edition of ICC U19 Girls World Cup will be an added incentive this year, that will be hosted by Bangladesh in December 2021. Although the qualification pathway is yet to be announced, it can be rest assured that ICC Africa qualification pathway will involve most of the ICC Associate member countries in the region.
