Ogun retains cricket gold

Ogun State seems to have made the cricket gold of the National Sports Festival their perpetual property following their triumph over Lagos in the final of the event at the Abuja 2004 edition of Nigeria's mini Olympics.

The defending champions had left no one in doubt of their ambition of an encore since competition started cricket, and they capped their impressive run through the preliminaries with a 56-run victory over their Lagos counterparts. Ogun State cricketers won the right to bat first and however hard they tried to make use of the opportunity,the bowlers on the Lagos side stylishly took the wickets and eventually ensured that the lads from Ogun did not hit their 200 runs target. The Seyi Sonde-inspired team ended the first innings playing 169 runs all out leaving the Lagosians to exhaust the whole lot of their 30 overs. Lagos in the reply were cautious in their batting with the runs coming in trickles.But Ogun bowlers remained resolute aiming very well in their deliveries thereby succeeding in dismissing Lagos' batsmen in a skittle.Lagos were able to amass only 113 runs all out also in 30 overs. National Team Coach and member of the Nigeria Cricket Association [NCA] Olisa Egwuatu told nigeriasports.com that the cricket authorities are happy with the level of technical prowess displayed by most of of the participating teams. "I believe competition was keener compared to what we had in Edo in 2002. The sky could only be the limit for the talents discovered here if properly harnessed,"said Egwuatu."Remarkably though, some of the players already play in the lower division of the cricket league so it was no surprise that they put up such a good performance." Eight States including Edo,Imo,Kaduna,Kwara,Lagos,Ogun and Oyo featured in the cricket competition of the 2004 National Sports Festival.