Abuja Cricket Club drew first blood by defeating Crocodiles Club of Kaduna by 4 wickets

in the North-West zonal qualifier of the 3rd National Cricket Club Championship match

played last Sunday at the National Stadium Oval, Abuja.

 

After winning the toss, Abuja put Crocodiles Club in to bat and rattled them out for

109 runs in 30 overs. Veteran Yahaya Ukwenya, 2nd Vice President of the NCF was top

batsman for his team scoring 32 runs and had support from J Moses with 17 and O.

Aderibigbe with 12 runs respectively.

 

The Abuja Club had great success with the ball with the bowling of Ravi who took 3 wickets

for 10 runs in 4 overs; Emeka also took 3 for 21 in 7 overs while Bakky and Matthew both

took 2 wickets each; Bakky for 43 runs in 9 overs and Matthew for 16 runs in 4 overs.

 

 Defending 109 runs was going to a tall order for Crocodiles Club but they got stuck into the

task and were rewarded with 6 wickets but fell short of victory. Kingsley scored 35 runs for

Abuja Club and was supported by Emeka with 15 and Saad with 14.

 

The wickets were shared among three bowlers of the Crocodiles Club; Yusuf Gershon took

2 for 38 in 9 overs; O. Obinna took 2 for 21 in 10 overs and Thomas Haruna took 2 for 20

in 10 overs.

 

Abuja cricket Club thus won by 4 wickets in the first match of a best of three encounter.

The next match comes up next Sunday at the ABU cricket oval in Zaria with Crocodiles

needing to win at home to remain in contention.