Nigerian cricket team captain Sylvester Okpe receiving a trophy from one of the officials .
By Akanimo Kufre
The Nigerian Senior Men’s Cricket team, the Yellow Greens on Wednesday scored 155 runs in the first inning but failed to defend as Kenya batted 156 runs to win 3-2 in the bilateral series.
Nevertheless, Nigeria’s Runsewe Sulaimon continued his class performance in keeping the highest batting scores for the Yellow Greens.
Sulaimon has gathered a personal total of 153 after 5 games to top the bilateral series while Kenya’s Sachin Bhudiya follows with 138 runs from 5 innings.
The Nigerian captain, Sylvester Okpe won the toss on the fifth day and opted to bat. The team kept a fair runs rate and scored 51 runs in 6.3 overs. Nigerian total was 155 runs which seems comfortable for another victory against the host. Runsewe Sulaimon contributed 51 runs off 41 balls while his compatriot Isaac Danladi batted 31 off 15 balls.
The second-inning chase by Kenya was more exciting as they played with a better runs rate than the Yellow Greens. Kenya scored 53 runs in 5.3 overs.
Nigerian bowlers were a little sloppy as they gave 11 extra balls to the opponents compared to 4 extras from Kenya.
Rakep Patel batted 51 off 35 balls while Neil Mugabe contributed 27 runs and Sukhdeep Singh played 26 runs to bring Kenya’s tally to 156 runs in 19.1 overs for their third win against Nigeria.