The Abuja Cricket Club

One of the first questions that Alex asked us when we told him we were moving to Abuja was: 'Do they play cricket in Nigeria?'. We assured him that they did, although our answer was based entirely on the fact that we had seen cricket being played in the garden at a 10-year-old's birthday party on our orientation visit back in June last year. So Simon was delighted to discover that a cricket match was taking place this weekend between the British High Commission and the joint forces of the Australian and New Zealand High Commissions. Somehow, Simon ended up as captain of the Australian team - although I suspect this had more to do with the lack of Antipodean players than Simon's recent discovery that he is in fact a quarter Australian - and he even managed to borrow a white top and trousers in order to look vaguely presentable.

The 20-20 limited overs match took place at the National Stadium, home to the Abuja Cricket Club and training ground of the national side - who, brilliantly, had turned out to watch the encounter. It wasn't quite the green freshly-mown pitch that Simon has been used to playing on in rural Suffolk, but it is surprising what you can do with a coir matting pitch and a lot of goodwill. I feel duty-bound to report that the Aussies won, with a total of 200 for 9 (or so) off their 20 overs, thrashing the Poms who managed to accumulate only 165 (or so) for 8. 

One of the challenges of the Abuja Cricket Club is attracting players of a decent standard and increasing the profile of cricket in a country which is football-mad, so events like this do help to stimulate interest in the sport. Emeka Onyeama, President both of the Nigeria Cricket Federation and the Cricket Club of Abuja, stated that he also wanted to use such matches as a means of improving relations between Nigeria and other countries.

Simon enjoyed the match so much that he told one of the Abuja Cricket Club members that he thought he should try and bring out his village cricket team. One has to be careful about such promises in the serious world of sporting diplomacy. Simon's comment was reported in the media this morning as follows:

As a benefit to Nigeria, Emeka discussed the impact the match has on cricket in Nigeria. “In using platforms like this to promote and improve cricket in Nigeria, they (other countries) can bring us equipment, come on playing tours. As a matter of fact, one of the Australian guys has already promised to bring his team over here, which is a good thing for us.”