NCF Super Four Women League: Edo Explores Cricket As Pathfinder In Sports Development
INnigeria, football is acknowledged as the people’s number one sport. Although the Europeans introduced it into the country at the same time with cricket, football has dominated the people’s fancy such that other games are forced to look in from afar. However, those who know have started looking at cricket as the sport that could drive genuine grassroots sports development in Nigeria.
Recently, Nigeria’s 105 years record- breaking cricket U- 19 World Cup qualification opened a new vista for the game among its youth, presenting the sport as an easy reach for sports development experimentation.
Before the U- 17 World Cup in 2019, Nigeria’s cricket was not reckoned with in Africa because it was languishing in the second tier of the continent’s league. Nigeria was far from those expected to cause any stir or pick the World Cup ticket before the World Cup kicked off in 2019.
But the country’s game in the hands of the Professor Adams Ukwenya led Nigeria Cricket Federation ( NCF) showed at the championship why it is rated as one of the fastest developing among its peers by snatching the World Cup ticket. That jinx- breaking feat has opened up new possibilities and developmental model that can be stretched, explored, rinse and repeated across board. And this is what Edo State government has leveraged through the Sports Commission that is led by Godwin Dudu- Orumen.
Recently, Dudu- Orumen, a lawyer and journalist, explained why Edo has adopted the cricket model in its pursuit of excellence in grassroots sports development.
“Cricket in Nigeria today is an interesting case, the game’s response to developmental efforts in the state has been exceptional. First, it has to do with the passion, focus and innovation that has been displayed by the team running the game in Edo State and the willingness to run with developmental guidelines cascaded from government.
“Second, I guess because they have within them a lot who have genuine grasp of the game’s local challenges. It was easy to come up with a model that caught- on for the game. We must admit that what they have can be improved upon and transposed to other sports,” Dudu- Orumen.
Edo State has shown interest in using sports and its values as touch point for social, economic and even structural revival in the state. Governor Godwin Obaseki has consistently posited that beyond active engagement, statistics of the state’s performance in sports over the years put it in an unusual advantage to lay a lasting structural reform around sports that can benefit its people and the entire country both in the short and long run. Dudu- Orumen says the story of hosting the National Sports Festival was hinged on the many layered advantages that is embedded for the state and how is can be used as a developmental tool for other aspects of the economy.
“Governor Obaseki is very focused on tapping into the power of sports that is why we have made the level of investments we made and also been steadfast despite the odds presented by the pandemic,” he added. But, while uncertainty looms around the activation of the larger sporting goal, there has been a quiet experimentation with a number of sports internally on the side, one of which is Cricket.
According to Dudu- Orumen, “cricket came easy for us, Edo State has some legacies around the game, and some structures, and we just needed to revamp. We have latent cricket power that we tapped into. But I guess the biggest positives for the game for us in Edo was the strength of manpower available especially that of the current Chairman, Uyi Akpata and the team he assembled, their vision and experience for grassroots development, ties perfectly into what we have set as agenda.
“The state had interest in Football, Boxing, Rugby, Athletics, Golf and a few others that we can use for our developmental modeling, but cricket has been far more available and cheaper because of the commitment, passion and alignment the Edo State Cricket Association had.”
During the U- 19 World Cup qualification campaign by the developmental team that Nigeria presented, only four players were from Edo State.
Two years down the line and Edo State Sports Cricket Association ( ESCA) backed by the government alone can field a national team of teenage cricketers that are ready to take on the world.
Chairman of Edo State Cricket Association, Uyi Akpata, who is also NCF’S vice president, is acknowledged as one of the drivers of the new way in Edo State. Akpata has brought administrative insight and experience from his different turfs, including his position as former captain of the golf section Ikoyi Club 1938 in Lagos, the biggest membership club in sub- Sahara Africa, to the quest to make Edo Nigeria’s sports hub.