By Gracious Akujobi The Nigeria Cricket Federation (NCF) has appointed new set of coaches for the national under-19 cricket team in preparation for next month’s African championship scheduled to take place in Botswana.
Prompt News reports that the NCF announced Tamuno John and Joseph Onoja as Head Coach and Assistant Coach respectively on Tuesday after its general staff meeting held in Abuja.
By these appointments, resumption of camping in preparation for the African Cricket Association (ACA) Championship will now take full swing with the arrival of 24 invited players to camp. General Manager of the Cricket Federation Joseph Eshua said 14 players will be selected out of the 24 in preparation for the Botswana tournament.
“At the end of today all invitation letters to the 24 players will be sent out for them to start proceeding to camp in Ilorin, Kwara, even though they are on standby as we speak,’’ Eshua said.
“The coaches have been given specific target and asked not to derail from its preparation”. He noted that the general staff meeting which approved the appointment of the new coaches and the calendar of NCF events for 2015 gave the coaches a specific target.
“The major target we have given them is for them not to use players that are over 19 years of age; it affects our development.
“That is why with this two coaches appointed today, we also have the senior national coach who will be on ground to support them during the local camping,’’ Eshua added.
Prompt News recalls that Nigeria recently climbed six places to rank 19th in the world and fifth in Africa in the latest world cricket ranking.
The ranking released by the International Cricket Council (ICC) for 2014 saw Nigeria overtook Kuwait, Saudi Arabia, Zambia, Italy, France and Germany.
