Cricket: Nigeria Coach Upbeat Ahead Of World Cup Qualifiers

Head coach of the Yellow Greens and high-performance manager of the Nigeria Cricket Federation, Steve Tikolo, is optimistic that the team is making significant progress in their bid to pick up the 2026 ICC T20 World Cup ticket, PUNCH Sports Extra reports.

The men’s senior national cricket team resumed camping in Lagos last week ahead of the 2026 World Cup qualifiers and the ILT20 Cup.

After winning the Africa Sub-Region C qualifiers last year, Tikolo’s men will go up against seven other countries in the qualifiers will be held in Zimbabwe from September 28 to October 4. Before then, they will also play the ILT20 Cup from July 13 to 30 in Uganda.

Ahead of the two tournaments, the former Kenya player is drilling 21 players at the Tafawa Balewa Square Oval in Onikan, Lagos, and he is happy about their progress before dropping his final list.

“The progress is good in terms of our training and we also have an international tournament coming up before the qualifiers. This will allow us some time to build on our momentum from the last qualifiers,” Tikolo told our correspondent.

“The cohesion has been great, especially now that most of our players have been exposed to leagues outside Nigeria (Zimbabwe). We hope to build on all of these.”

The former Kenyan captain took over the Nigerian job in October 2023 and has set his sights on leading the team to glory.

“The last two and half years have been productive, not just with the men’s national team but with other age-grade teams as well, especially the females. I wanted to say the journey has been slow and steady but when you have made remarkable progress with the national teams, I dare say that we are on a fast lane and getting closer to our objectives as a country,” Tikolo added.

Nigeria will battle Namibia, Kenya, Malawi, Ugandan, Zimbabwe, Tanzania and Botswana in the final of the qualifiers in Zimbabwe.

The World Cup is billed for India and Sri Lanka between February and March 2026.