How cricket originated in Nigeria?
When the British invaded Africa they aslo settled in Nigeria and in the 19th century cricket was started playing in Nigeria by the British colonial administrators.
Later on, English missionaries and army personnel added impetus to the spread of the game.Officially, the first ever recorded international cricket match for Nigeria was in 1904, and it was against the Gold Coast, which is now called as Ghana.
Forming of Nigerian Cricket Federation and WACC:
It was in 1932,the Nigeria Cricket Association (expatriates) was formed , while the indigenous cricketers responded with a Nigeria Cricket Association (indigenous) in 1933. After that a joint board of control was inaugurated in Lagos in 1951 so that each association retains its identity.
After all these problems, in 1957 Nigeria Cricket Association (NCA) was formed, which was an amalgamation of both expatriate and indigenous bodies.Recently in 2006,the NCA changed its name to Nigeria Cricket Federation (NCF).
The West African Cricket Federation(WACF) was formed on May 1965 and credit goes to Nigeria as it was Nigeria who initiated the move to form a sub-regional body in the early 60s and also arranged an inaugural meeting of cricket playing countries in West Africa in Freetown, Sierra Leone where WACF was established.
And since Nigeria was responsible for the formation of WACF,its headquarters is in Nigeria.WACF changed their name as West Africa Cricket Conference (WACC) in 1976.The great turning point and success for Nigeria was in 2002 when Nigeria was granted Associate membership of the ICC
Nigerian cricket at International Level
After their recorded international match in 1904 against Ghana, Nigeria and Ghana have played each other on numerous occasions. But the first Nigerian to captain a joint Nigerian team (expatriates and locals) was Rex Akpofure, when the team played a series against Ghana in 1959.
But report says that even before Rex Akpofure in 1954,Eddy Hughes was the first Nigerian who captained the side against Ghana and this match was played so as to mark the golden jubilee of cricket relations between both countries in which the Nigerian team was captained by Nigeria started to play with other countries also during the early 1960's and in 1964, Nigeria began to established contact with the Gambia and Sierra Leone.
The WACC(was formed originally as WACF in 1965)conducted a quadrangular tournament which featured the four West African countries and these countries are
1)Gambia
2)Ghana
3)Nigeria and
4)Sierra Leone
This tournament was commenced in 1976 and Nigeri was given the privelage to host the tournament.Nigeria dominated this tournament and they won first 10 editions starting from 1976 to 1997.
Apart from playing against West African countries they also started to tour the East African countries like Kenya, Uganda, Tanzania and Zambia.They first had a tour to East Africa in 1973 and it lasted for over six weeks.The team performed well in this tournament as they
i)Won 2 matches
ii)Lost 2 matches
iii)Drew six International matches.
But before eall these activities. in 1950's and 1960's, the earliest exposure of Nigerians to cricket in the UK was by Unilever (UK) in co-operation with colonial civil servants, company staff on vacation and also by Nigerian students or summer visitors in the UK.Apart from this they had won most of the friendly matches.After that on February 1974,The Tanzanian National team tours Nigeria.
After these tremendous development, the NCF(NCA at that time) also sent players to England on training tours in 1975, 1981 and 1990. They utilized it properly and during this tour, players were trained at the Alf Glover Cricket School and the prestigious Lords and also they played in friendly matches.
The Marylebone Cricket Club (MCC) visited Nigeria aso as to help them for the development of cricket and so far they have visited Nigeria thrice, in 1976, 1994 and 2004. As it was a very strong team MCC the MCC won all its matches convincingly in 1976.
But the Nigerians were not upset and they developed so well that they could defeat the MCC on 19th January 1994, by three wickets in the first of the two matches.Recently from 2000, Nigeria is also taking part in the ACA tournaments as well as the Pepsi ICC World Cricket League Division 7.
Their format of the Game - For development of cricket
NCF holds domestic competittion regulary and the major senior Domestic Competition includes
i)The Club Cricket Committee (CCC):
#)This League features 12 clubs
#)They are in two divisions of six each
#)The game is played mostly in Lagos.
ii) Club Cricket Committee (CCC):
#)It is a super four tournament
#)It features the first four clubs in division 1 of the CCC league.
#)They usaully follow round-robin format
iii)Edo State league:
#)This league features four clubs
#)They usually play a double round-robin league format in Benin City, Edo State.
iv)North-West league:
#)It includes the two clubs who feature in a play-off for the qualifier for the National Club championship.
v) South-East league:
#)This league features three clubs who engage in a play-off for the National Club Championship.
vi)National Club Cricket Championship:
#)This was revived after a gap of 10 years
#)This pits the winners of the above four leagues against each other
#)This is on a knock-out basis.
Vii) The Nigeria University Games (NUGA) features cricket and in the recent edition, eight universities had competed, and the University of Lagos won the Gold Medal
viii)Apart from this the National Sports Festival also features cricket and this format features different states and it is usually conducted once in two years.
Apart from this there are also tournament conducted for junior levels and this includes
#) "Howzat Lagos Junior Cricket Tournament" - for Sterling Bank Cup
#) "Howzat National Junior six-a-side cricket tournament" - for Stanbic Cup
#) "Howzat National Junior Cricket Super League" - for Phillip Asiodu Trophy
#) "Howzat Lagos Colts Cricket League"
#) "National Secondary Schools Tournament"