Cricket: ‘More Clubs For CCC 2011/12 League’

Tournament Director of Club Cricket Committee, CCC, League, Mr. Barnaby Ephraim, has said that more clubs will take part in the forthcoming 2011/2012 season which kicks off next month.

Ephraim told P.M.Sports that the need to enhance the standard of the league prompted the committee to allow more clubs to participate in the coming season.

According to him, “More clubs will participate in the league this season and this will go a long way in improving the standard of the league.

“The Rock Cricket Club from Abeokuta, Ogun State will take part in the league and a club from the Asian community will also feature in the league for the first time,” he said.

Ephraim said that the CCC is looking forward to the commencement of the league with high expectations, adding that all hands are on deck to ensure its success .

“We are all ready. The CCC, the teams, our sponsor, Iris Smart Technologies and the fans are ready. We’ll be having two venues for the league this season; the Tafawa Balewa Cricket Oval in Race Course, Onikan and the University of Lagos. I can assure you that the venues are ready for the cricket action,” he said.

BRF Cricket Club of Ibeju Lekki were double champions last year after winning the league and the Super Four tournament.

Meanwhile, General Manager of the Nigeria Cricket Federation, NCF, George Wiltshire, has commended the management of Iris Smart Technologies Limited for the strong support given to the federation during the Nigerian Senior Cricket team’s participation at the recently concluded World Cricket League Division 6(WCL 6) tournament in Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia.

The Nigerian cricket team were placed 5th in the tournament out of six countries, Guernsey, Malaysia, Jersey, Kuwait and Fiji.

Nigeria were subsequently relegated to WCL 7 from where they gained promotion earlier in the year in Botswana along with Fiji which finished in 6th place.

Despite the relegation, Nigeria improved their ranking to 37th in ICC’s ODI ranking table from their previous 38th given that all the countries they competed with are ranked higher.

Iris Smart Technologies supported the team’s participation with a donation of N2 million in pursuit of its corporate social responsibility philosophy. The company whose parent company is based in Malaysia therefore identified with Nigerian Cricket and the country of its parent company.

Iris Smart Technologies is a long-time partner of Nigerian cricket with its sponsorship of the Lagos Cricket Club Committee(CCC) League and Super Four, for almost 10 years.

Wiltshire also gave kudos to Interworld Nigeria Limited (Binatone), Geekay Nigeria Limited(Cash & Carry) and the India Cricket Federation Lagos which supported the trip with donations of N100,000, N200,000 and N50,000 respectively.

He said that with this development, NCF has opened a mutually beneficial relationship with the two new corporate sponsors and India Cricket Federation, Lagos, which is good for the game in Nigeria.

—Taiwo Adelu