Nigeria has produced its fair share of great sportsmen and women – but unlike footballers and polo players, cricketers rarely get the West African nation’s heart beating.

Cricket and Nigeria may seem an incongruous pairing, but in Lagos many a weekend players in their colourful kit take to the crease on a dusty pitch in a fiercely competitive cricket league.

“This league actually boasts about 99% of the Nigerian national team,” says Femi Solebo, who chairs the Club Cricket Committee Lagos and also plays for the Ibeju Lekki Cricket Club.

Watching a game from the welcome shade of the pavilion, he occasionally shouts out instructions to his batsmen taking on Government College Ibadan in a 50-over game.

“Over the last three or four years Nigerian cricket has stepped up quite a lot and has allowed these guys here to show their stuff at an international level,” he says.

“Recently the national team got promoted to division five in the World Cricket League, which is a huge achievement for us – we’ve never been there before in the history of Nigerian cricket.[img][/img]

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[size=15pt]Nigeria cricket team hires Indian coach[/size]

The Nigerian Cricket national team has engaged the services of an Indian coach to support the team's technical crew at the World Cricket League Division 5 tournament scheduled for the United Kingdom later this month. Nigeria aims to win the tournament and secure promotion to Division 4. It's a tough target but the team is training hard to achieve to it.