Head coach of the Female Yellow Greens, Leke Oyede, says the team will begin closed-camping in the first week of May for the 2024 Kwibuka cricket tournament in Rwanda, PUNCH Sports Extra reports.
Nigeria, hosts Rwanda and six other countries have been confirmed for the expanded 10th edition of the tournament, which is scheduled for May 27 to June 8 at the Gahanga International Cricket Stadium in Kigali.
Ahead of what will be the team’s first outing since winning bronze at the 2023 African Games in Ghana last month, Oyede said the players were currently on individual training programmes and would resume full training for the tournament in May.
“Our plan is to begin training in the first week of May. Currently, they (players) are training on their own, according to the plans we gave them and we do that most times after each tournament,” Oyede told PUNCH Sports Extra.
“What we do is to visit them before another tournament and access them before they resume camp for another tournament.”
The 10th Kwibuka is moving from a four-nation tournament and eight teams have already been confirmed for this year’s edition while the hosts are still expecting Tanzania, Namibia, USA and Japan to confirm their participation for the expanded tournament.
Oyede believes the expansion will further expose the players.
“With eight teams already, we are sure to have better exposure and from indications, there will still be more countries, so, that will allow us to test the strength of our players against some teams we haven’t played before.”
Other teams confirmed for the competition include Uganda, Zimbabwe, Botswana, Kenya, Malawi and Cameroon.
The Female Yellow Greens will be making their fifth appearance at the tournament, where they finished fourth last year after losing to Kenya in the third-place playoff.
With their current rise from their performance at the African Games, where they stunned Namibia and Uganda to claim bronze in Ghana, other African countries would be wary of the Nigerian team in Rwanda come May.
Last year, Rwanda also claimed a surprise six-wicket victory over Uganda in the final to claim their first title in nine years. It was Rwanda’s first win against Uganda and the first time that they had won the Kwibuka tournament, which is organised annually to commemorate the 1994 genocide against the Tutsi (an ethnic group in Rwanda).