Tuesday 18 June 2013

NCF wants cricket in Calabar sports festival


As a way of pushing cricket into the mainstream of the nation’s sports, the Nigeria Cricket Federation (NCF) has concluded plans to approach the organisers of next year National Sports Festival to allow cricket to debut.
The federation noted that apart from their plans to take the game to the grassroots, the National Sports Festival is a very strong platform that can be used to make the game which is very unpopular in this part of the world to begin to generate some followership.
A top member of the board of the federation, Kayode Adeniyi told Newswatch Sports that they will soon be going to Calaber to meet with the Sports Commissioner and state Director of Sports to discuss the possibility   of having the game feature in the festival to hosted ib Calabar.
“Since we came on board we are making effort to see how to make the game gain ground in Nigeria. Though, we have our road map on how we want to achieve our goal but we also feel that the National Sports Festival will be a good platform to sell the game to the minds of Nigerians. We shall be meeting with all those concerned with the hosting of the game and we pray that they will see sense in what we are saying,”
Adeniyi said that while in Calabar,the federation would be making a donation of cricket equipment to the state and  partners with the state Cricket Association to organise a coaching clinic among schools and basic coaching courses for sports officers in Calabar.
He also said that the NCF will provide technical support in the development of cricket pitch while the host state will provide other facilities adding that maintained that the federation will include coaching personnel from Cross River State in future coaching courses. On whether they would be able to raise enough team to feature at the games, Adeniyi argued that many states have started playing the game, assuring that getting enough representation to participate at the games will not be a challenge.
“What people do not know is that many states play cricket now in Nigeria. Though, no much noise is made about them, but they are there. We are very sure that if we are admitted to participate at the Calabar Games, we will not be short of numbers of team to participate,” he said.

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