After months of preparation, Nigeria Women’s U-19 cricket team, the Junior Female Yellow Greens, will face Pakistan in a warm-up game on Monday (today), before their first game at the Malaysia 2025 ICC Women’s U-19 World Cup, which is billed for Saturday, January 18, PUNCH Sports Extra reports.
The warm-up match is billed for the YSD-UKM Cricket Oval in Bangi, Malaysia at 3:30 pm local time and 10:30 pm Nigerian time.
Nigeria is making her debut at the Women’s U-19 World Cup as the sole qualifier from the African Qualifying series in Kigali in October 2024, edging highly-rated Zimbabwe, Uganda among others to pick the spot.
Lucky Piety, captain of the Nigerian side, will lead her team to face the eighth-ranked team in the world on the T20 log, where they are ranked 26th.
The president of the Nigeria Cricket Federation, Uyi Akpata, said the event was a milestone for the country’s cricket, and he believes the girls will make the best use of the moments that the World Cup presents.
“The girls have been at different camp sessions since they qualified in October, and they concluded one last weekend in India before heading finally to Malaysia. I believe these exposures will come together to enhance their performance,” he said.
Akpata also lauded the National Sports Commission for its support of the federation and the team flying the country’s flag.
“We commend the leadership of the National Sports Commission for their support and encouragement in ensuring the team’s World Cup plan is fully seen through.”
The Junior Female Yellow Greens are Group C with fellow debutants Samoa, New Zealand, and South Africa. The team’s first match will be against Samoa on Saturday, January 18, 2025, at the Borneo Cricket Ground in Sarawak.
They will face test nation New Zealand in their second game of the tournament on Monday, January 20 and South Africa in the last group game two days later.
The Women’s U-19 World Cup will mark Nigeria’s second appearance at any cricket World Cup, six years after the men’s U-19 team also qualified for the 2019 edition in South Africa.