Nigeria Names Squad for T20 World Cup Africa Qualifiers
The Nigeria Cricket Federation (NCF) has announced a 15-man squad for the 2026 ICC Men’s T20 World Cup Africa Qualifier, which will take place in Zimbabwe from 28th September to 4th October.
Sylvester Okpe will captain the team, and his brother, Isaac Okpe, is also included. Other players in the squad are Elijah Olaleye, Selim Salau, Sulaimon Runsewe, and Isaac Danladi. These players have all taken part in international training programmes since July.
Okpe, Olaleye, and Salau have been playing in Zimbabwe’s domestic league from 2nd August to 14th September, gaining important match experience. Runsewe and Danladi went to South Africa for a high-performance training camp to improve their skills ahead of the qualifiers.
The rest of the squad includes:
Vincent Adewoye, Ridwan Kareem, Prosper Useni, Peter Aho, Jimoh Abdulrahman, and Solomon Chilemanya.
Chiemelie Udekwe, Adedeji Sesan, and Joshua Asia also return to the team after missing the last tournament in Uganda.
The team is coached by former Kenyan international, Steve Tikolo, and has been in camp in Lagos since the end of their participation in the Pearl of Africa T20 tournament in July.
In the final round of the qualifiers, Nigeria will face Namibia, Kenya, Malawi, Uganda, Zimbabwe, Tanzania, and Botswana. Only two teams from Africa will qualify for the T20 World Cup.
The Yellow Greens earned their place in this final round by finishing top of Group B in last year’s regional qualifiers.
So far, 15 teams, including South Africa, have already qualified for the 2026 T20 World Cup, which will be hosted by India and Sri Lanka between February and March 2026.
