Sports
NCF U-17 Cricket Tourney Ends With Excitments
The Final match of the National Under-17 Cricket Championship for Boys ended with thrills and excitements, reminding all and sundry about the beauty of the game.
North West cruised to the final after beating North Central in the semi-final, while South-South thumped South West to also qualify for the final. Edo Boys High School, Benin City was packed to full capacity by home fans, and spectators.
South-South emerged doubles champions of the Girls and Boys Under-17 Cricket tournament, as they lifted Boys and girls trophies.
South-South won the toss and elected to bat first. The opening pair of Elijah Saturday and Selim Salau started brightly, racing to 45 runs in the power play over. The Genius of Chidi Onwubualili got hat trick wicket which dealt a serious blow into the Bating attack of South-South. Wickets fell every other over, leaving South-South to settle for a below par score of 93 runs all out in 25.1 overs.
Elijah Saturday scored 32 runs off 36 balls as the best performer with the bat for South-South.
Chidi Onwubualili finished with 4 wickets, conceding 19 runs in 6.1 overs, strongly supported by Theophilus Jeremiah with 3 wickets for 32 runs in 8 overs for North West.
In the second innings, South-South took the game to North West, piling pressure from the first ball. Onslaught led by Prosper Useni, North West lost 5 wickets for 18 runs in the power play over, leaving too much to ponder for the middle order batsmen.
A spark of hope from Kenneth Boniface came to an end with the catch and moment of the tournament by Effiong Godswill in Mid-wicket, quenching every ray of hope of comeback by the North-West team.
North West eventually finished with 52 runs all out in 18 overs.
Isaac Oyemba got 3 wickets, conceding 19 runs in 6 overs, supported by Destiny Chilemayan with 3 wickets for 5 runs in 3 overs and Ogbemudia Eweka with 2 wickets for 8 runs in 4 overs.
Kenneth Boniface scored 16 runs off 19 balls and Paul Pam scored 14 runs off 34 balls as the only double figures for North-West.
Destiny Chilemayan was named player of the match.
South-South won by 41 runs and crowned tournament champions.
High light of the tournament was the presentation of awards to teams and individual athletes winners.
South-South (Winners Trophy and Medal Champions North West (Runners Up Trophy and Medal). Runners Up. South West (3rd Position Trophy and Medal) 3rd Position North Central 4th Position South East 5th Position.
Individual awards were most Valuable Player (Award +20,000) Boniface Kenneth (North West)
Best Bowler (Award + 15,000) Theophilus Jeremiah (North West)
Best Fielder(Award +15,000) Joshua Sunday (North West) Best Batsman(Award + 15,000) Elijah Saturday (South-South) and
Best Behaved (Award + 15, 000) was awarded to Godswill Effiong (South-South) respectively.
Special awards by sponsor of the competition, Price Waterhouse Coopers (PWC), MVP. Team South-South cart home (15,000)…Destiny Chilemayan
MVP. Team North West (15,000) was awarded to Chidi Onwubualili Moment of the Game (15,000)and Godswill Efiiong respectively.
England captain Harry Kane netted a hat-trick to guide Bayern Munich to an impressive victory against Stuttgart.
Kane’s goals, plus one from Kingsley Coman, helped Bayern end a three-game winless run in all competitions.
They faced a tough task against a Stuttgart side who sat back and limited their chances, leading Vincent Kompany’s side to enter the break frustrated and with the deadlock unbroken.
Bayern eventually found a way past Stuttgart’s steely defence when Kane drilled a low effort into the bottom corner from around 30 yards out after Joshua Kimmich overturned possession.
Former Nigeria goalkeeper, Dosu Joseph, is full of thanks to God after he miraculously survived another life-threatening automobile accident recent at Kara, along the Lagos-Ibadan Express Way, where a heavy-duty truck ran into his SUV.
Narrating his ordeal, the 51-year-old, who guided Nigeria to gold in the Men’s Football Tournament of the 1996 Olympics in Atlanta, broke the news in a statement on his social media handles on Friday.
“To God be the glory, another death escaped by Grace and Mercy of God. Me and my friend SM were at Enyo Filling Station after Ojodu Berger bus stop to get fuel on Wednesday, October 2, 2024, around 6 p.m. when this MACK truck fully loaded with iron, with registration number LND 470 XX, left the road and crushed my car beyond repairs. Thank God for life,” he stated.
This is the second time the soft-spoken club proprietor will cheat death by a whisker, having been involved in an accident in 1997 that ended his career at 23 and left his spinal cord in bad shape.
He helped Julius Berger win the Nigeria FA Cup in November 1997 shortly a memorable Olympic outing by keeping a clean sheet in the finals against Katsina United. The following year, he was involved in the auto along Ikorodu Road, Lagos, which not only cut his career short but also left him almost paralysed, ending his spell at Serie A club Reggiana.
The former Nigeria international, who also kept goal for Julius Berger FC, said the case has been reported to Isheri Police Station, Ogun State, where the driver is currently detained and the truck also seized.
According to him, the owner of the truck said he can’t fix the badly damaged SUV until after a year.
Ex – Super Eagles of Nigeria, Okwuchukwu Waobikeze has observed that sports development in Nigeria is going down.
According to him, grassroots sports is very important, without it, the administrators cannot get it right. So everybody should key into grassroots sports development, he said.
Waobikeze said this last Wednesday in an interview with sports journalists shortly after the Port Harcourt All Stars Independence football festival (OCTOBERFEST) at the Port Harcourt club, Rivers State.
He explained that for sports administrators to get it right, grassroots development is key. “They should be organising competition at the grassroots level to fish out the young ones for different sporting activities.
“Grassroots sports is very important so the administrators have to go back to the grassroots.
” Sports Development in Nigeria is going down we need to go back to the basics.
“Look at the just concluded Paris Olympics, Nigeria did not win any medal.
” Our football team did not even qualify for the Olympics. We are going down.
” If they should go back to the grassroots, they will get young ones in the games and talents will be developed.
” I started from school games, to youth games before playing for the national team. Now everybody wants to fly board to play professional football and a lot do not know the basics of the game.
” A lot of people did not know the little things about the game, they just want to play. It is not done so,” Waobikeze stated.
Kiadum Edookor