The University of Port Harcourt cricket team, nicknamed Spartans on Tuesday defeated the series favourite, University of Benin to clinch gold in the ODI cricket format at the ongoing Nigerian University Games Association (NUGA) event hosted by the University of Lagos.
Uniben batted first and scored 117 runs with Nigeria’s international, Destiny Eghosa playing only 5 runs off 12 balls before being bowled by Uniport’s Ifeanyi Uboh.
Miracle Akhigbe’s top batting performance of 33 runs from 23 balls could not save the day for Nigeria’s best-equipped university cricket team.
In the second innings, Uniport came in armed with a better runs rate despite the early fall of the opening wicket. Destiny Eghosa took out Uniport’s Talabi Odunayo on the second ball.
Uniport fought hard by increasing their runs rate to 8.96 against Uniben’s 7.80. They scored 118 runs and won by 5 wickets.
Another Nigeria national team player, Isiaka Audu contributed 20 runs from 13 balls for Uniport while his teammate, Kingsley Chukwuemeka became Man of the Match by taking down 2 Uniben batters.
The 3rd place match turned out an amazing result as host, Unilag lost to Unilorin. The University of Lagos lost all wickets at 59 runs.
Beki Mubarak from Unilorin was the man of the match with a whopping strike rate of 253.8. He made 33 runs off 13 balls and not out.
Cricket action will return on Thursday with the T20 version as Wednesday has been declared rests day.
Unizik will lock horns with Uniport Spartans who are confident with gold around their shoulders.
