October 2, 2025

Sharing is caring!

With their dream of qualifying for the 2026 ICC Men’s T20 World Cup in India and Sri Lanka over, Nigeria’s male senior team, the Yellow Greens, will hope to end the qualifying tournament in a respectable position, as they face Botswana in the first classification game in Zimbabwe, PUNCH Sports Extra.

The Yellow Greens’ World Cup dreams were cut short on Tuesday after a seven-wicket defeat against Kenya in their last group game at the African qualifiers in Zimbabwe.

If they beat Botswana, they would play in the fifth-place classification final against the winner of the other game between Uganda and Malawi.

Nigeria needed a win against Kenya to advance to the semi-finals and take one step closer to the final, which guarantees one of the tickets.

Nigeria batted first in the encounter and posted 147 runs for the loss of seven wickets in 20 overs.

Isaac Danladi led Nigeria’s run, knocking 53 off 47 balls. Sulaimon Runsewe added 27 from 32 balls while captain Sylvester Okpe also contributed 26 from 19 balls.

Having lost their previous two games, the Kenyans needed to win against Nigeria, and they wasted no time putting the runs on the board in the second innings.

It took them 13 overs to register the 148-run target, dropping just three wickets in the process.

Sachin Bhudia was instrumental to Kenya’s batting, posting 57 runs from 29 balls, followed by Rakep Patel with 53 runs off 38 balls.

As a result, Kenya advanced to the second semi-final, where they will face hosts Zimbabwe, who beat Tanzania by 113 runs to top Group B.

Table toppers in Group A, Namibia, will square up against Tanzania for a place in the final.

The two finalists will pick Africa’s ticket to the World Cup.

Sharing is caring!

Leave a Reply

Your email address will not be published. Required fields are marked *