CricketEurope a website that covers cricket in Europe and worldwide that also posts

a cricket ranking section has released its ranking of 84 ICC Associate and Affiliate

members dated 13th November, 2009.

The ranking which does not include the ten ICC Full members ranks Nigeria at 29

with 87 points out of the 84 countries ranked.

Ireland tops the ranking with 153 points followed by Scotland (140), Netherlands (138)

and Kenya (136) in 2nd, 3rd and 4th position while Switzerland with no point is at the

base of the rankings.

The ranking compares reasonably to the official ICC ranking in the sense that if the ten

full members not on CricketEurope’s list are added, Nigeria’s ranking might have been

39 which can be tallied to the ICC official ranking of 37/42.

Two of Nigeria’s opponents in the WCL 7 are ranked above it i.e. Guernsey (25) and

Gibraltar (27) whilst three are below it i.e. Suriname (32), Japan (33) and Bahrain (37)

which gives hope for a competitive tournament in Guernsey next year in that the countries

are ranked not too far from each other. Similar to the ICC Official ranking, Nigeria is ranked 6th in Africa after Kenya, Namibia, Uganda, Botswana and Tanzania with CricketEurope ranking Botswana higher than Tanzania.

Nigeria’s North-West African neighbors are ranked as follows; Sierra Leone (38), Ghana (48),Morocco (58), and Gambia (70).