Cricket: Nigeria to dump ageing players
The Nigeria Cricket Federation (NCF) has perfected plans to axe ageing players in the senior national male team after assessing recent decline in the performances of the team.
A board member of the Federation, Kayode Adeniyi made the revelation at a press conference held at the Abuja National stadium.
He lamented that most of the players have been in the team for almost 20 years, insisting that the board has resolved to start working on how to bring younger players on board following the dismal performance of the country at the recently concluded 2014 ICC World Cricket League Division 5 in Malaysia.
“Unfortunately, we couldn’t get promotion to Division 4 as promised. Our players are ageing and so, the way they strain the ball now is not internationally acceptable.
“We really need to take a second look at our players if seriously we want to go for another competition this year. Those guys are really getting old. Some of them have been playing for Nigeria since the last 15, 16 years,” Adeniyi explained.
He said to achieve the revolution in the team, the board is presently working on a national competition for secondary school students which is targeted at identifying talents that can be groomed into stardom.
The NCF board member assured that committees have already been constituted to ensure the success of the competition which will probably take place at the Abuja National Stadium before the end of the year.
He however, promised that the ageing players will be appointed into the management team of the Federation.
Meanwhile, Mr. Adeniyi who is also the Chairman of the NCF Media Committee said efforts are being made to relocate the team to Abuja where the players can get access to a turf.
He added that the cricket pitch the team is using for training in Nigeria is different from the ones used at international competitions, stressing that it also affected the players’ outputs.
“When you train in Lagos (training pitch), which is a concrete pitch, the ball goes faster when you drop it than it would on the turf.”
“We have now agreed that we need to take a second look at the team and the pitch. That was why we decided to move to Abuja where we have a turf,”he noted.