Nigeria’s rising cricket star, Fortunate Piety, has been named Most Helpful Participant (MVP) and Finest Batter of the just-concluded ICC T20 Africa Girls’s World Cup Qualifier Division 1 in Namibia, Sports247 experiences.
She capped a exceptional particular person efficiency regardless of Nigeria’s struggles on the event.
The 18-year-old all-rounder lit up the competitors with a record-breaking 92 runs within the seventh-place playoff, steering the Feminine Yellow Greens to 159 for 4 earlier than they dismissed Sierra Leone by 85 runs.
That knock now stands as the best particular person rating by a Nigerian participant in T20I cricket, eclipsing her earlier better of 70 towards Malawi on the Kwibuka Event.
Piety ended the qualifiers with 198 runs, together with 68 towards Sierra Leone within the opener and 35 towards Kenya, underlining her consistency with the bat.
Nonetheless, Nigeria’s World Cup qualification hopes have been dashed within the group stage after simply two wins in 5 video games.
The Leke Oyede-led facet opened with a 96-run thrashing of Sierra Leone however fell to hosts Namibia and Zimbabwe earlier than bowing out.
A subsequent defeat to Kenya within the fifth/sixth classification conflict confirmed their relegation to Division 2.
The staff salvaged pleasure with Saturday’s emphatic win over Sierra Leone to complete seventh, with Piety as soon as once more on the coronary heart of the victory.
Since rising from the Nigeria Cricket Federation’s grassroots program in Edo State, Piety has turn out to be the face of ladies’s cricket within the nation.
In 47 T20Is, she has scored 745 runs, together with three half-centuries, whereas additionally contributing with the ball with 32 wickets at an financial system fee of 4.59.
Earlier this yr, she captained Nigeria’s U-19 ladies’s facet on the ICC Girls’s T20 U-19 World Cup in Malaysia, additional establishing herself as one in every of Africa’s brightest younger abilities.
Whereas Nigeria’s marketing campaign resulted in disappointment, Piety’s brilliance is a shining reminder of the promise that lies forward for ladies’s cricket within the nation.
