The Nigerian Cricket team have beefed up preparations for the T20 Bi-Lateral series against Sierra Leone with closed camping and training.
Despite the hot weather in Nigeria currently, the cricket team have been training at the University of Lagos Cricket oval with coach Asanka Pradeep Gurusinha for the series holding next week.
Speaking to Sports247, Head coach and high-performance manager of the Nigerian Cricket Team Asanka Pradeep Gurusinha praised the commitment and level of performance of the lads after assessment as well as expressed his delight at the progress so far in his 10 months in charge of the team
“They have worked hard and I have seen the progress they have made in those 10 months. We had a 3-month window where we didn’t train due to the pandemic, which was a bit of a problem but the players have done very well. They are much better, fitter, they have improved a lot and I’m very happy,” Asanka said.
As regards the preparation level of the team for the series, coach Asanka said, “I’m happy with the progress, it’s been good as we had about six games in Uganda a few weeks ago and now we have been preparing for this and the progress is fine.”
“One of the main things I presented to the federation when I came in was to make this team one of the fittest sides around, the fittest in Africa and it’s been going fine until halfway through where we had the period of no training but we’re slowly getting back there. We want to compete with every side and we won’t take anyone likely. We will give a hundred percent as our main target is the ICC World Cup qualifiers which we will face two top sides in Kenya and Uganda,” he added.
The coach went on to applaud the Nigerian Cricket Federation for their commitment to the team so far and support in every form which has helped the preparation of the side.
“The Federation has been brilliant, the former president Prof. Yahaya Ukwenya and current president Uyi Akpata have been an unbelievable support system and I’m lucky to have them,” he said.
Coach Asanka Pradeep Gurusinha is a former Sri Lanka player with an 11-year playing career in which he played 41 Tests and 147 ODIs. He was quite instrumental to the 1996 Cricket World Cup Winning Sri Lanka side as a specialist batsman with 65 runs out of 125 in a good partnership with Aravinda de Silva.
