Lucky Piety: Riding on the Wings of Success as Cricket Gains more Ground in Nigeria

In a country that finds accepting the reality of the sport very difficult, watching the sport and playing the sport always gives a different vibe.

For most, watching becomes very tiring, especially when one can't comprehend the "complex rules and formats" but if introduced to one early, they'd definitely be no stopping the love for the sport - cricket.

One of the lucky ones to hop on that cricket train is Lucky Piety. Since age 11, her love for the sport has increased and she currently finds other sports boring.

SportsBoom.com exclusively caught up with the 17-year old after she made history with her teammates by qualifying Nigeria to her first-ever ICC U19 Women’s T20 World Cup 2025 in Malaysia and she shared with her cricket story, the successes recorded and how she is looking forward to the World cup next year.

How did she Begin?

Less than seven years into the sport, she is leading the pack of becoming the first female player to score a century at a T20 format game, first at the national U-17 championships in 2021, before repeating same feat on the international scene, this time around at the 2023 ICC Women’s U-19 Cricket World Cup qualifier.

She got introduced to the sport while in college after leaving a private school to join a public school for some unfriendly economic reasons in Ekpoma, a part of Edo state in Nigeria where she hails from.

Image Credits: Rotimi Akindele

“I got into the sport back in school without being invited and I loved it from the very first experience I had. I was at Ujoelen Grammar School, Ekpoma and I was intrigued by the fact that people were following the ball, and I fell in love from there,” she said.

From then on, she kept on honing her skills and started playing more at school level and state level in competitions organized by the federation and by individuals. She even featured for her state at the National Championships in 2019 and was discovered by the national team coaches two years later.

She stated that the sport requires one to use more ingenuity to approach while exerting less energy.

Ticket to Malaysia

Few weeks ago, at the Africa Qualifier Division 1 title decider in Kigali, the under-19 women’s cricket team, the Junior female Yellow Greens led by captain Lucky Piety who had remained unbeaten in the competition qualified for the 2025 ICC U19 T20 World Cup in Malaysia.

The title was decided after rain disrupted Zimbabwe’s innings in the final at the Cricket Oval in Gahanga. Piety had won the toss for Nigeria and elected to bat first, and that decision proved crucially positive for the team as they somewhat struggled with the bowling of the southern African nation.

"Winning the title was historical for us and of course it's an achievement that the entire team was happy about. It's a great one and we are so, so excited about it," Piety said.

She also praised her teammates and coaches on the feat and touched on what went right especially with preparations for the competition. "I would say my teammates had the belief, we all as a team, we had the belief that we were going to qualify because from the training sessions, we always had in mind that we were going to qualify and we took the qualification series very, very seriously from the first game.

The Junior Yellow Greens' run to the title in Kigali began with a four wickets win over Tanzania, edged past losing finalist Zimbabwe by one wicket in the group stages and easily went past Malawi by 86 runs to finish top of Group B.

Nigeria defeated hosts Rwanda by 62 runs before setting up a second meeting against Zimbabwe in the final. Nigeria has recently recorded some successes away from the shores in the sport and Piety was quick to praise the federation hierarchy for the surge.

"So the reason for recent successes on the international and the domestic scenes can be attributed to the efforts being put into the sport by those running the sports in Nigeria.

"I would say that our president has put in a lot of investment to ensure the good growth of the sport in the country across the male and female categories. We now have more support, sponsorship from our president and that has encouraged a lot of positive energy across.

What to Expect in Malaysia

The 2025 World Cup in Malaysia is scheduled for 18 January to 2 February 2025, with Nigeria in Group C alongside New Zealand, South Africa, and Samoa. Piety has gone on to set a target for herself and her teammates when they get to Asia.

"So, for the World cup we also have a plan of qualifying to the top six. We want to play good cricket out there, making a name for ourselves and the country. We have to be more strategic and tactical in our approach to games. We have to make sure that we work, if not almost to perfection, but to a very, very high standard. The country expects us to put up a good show and that's what we are focused on doing," Piety disclosed.

One of the main personnel in the development of the sport in Nigeria and the current Head of Media and Public Relations officer for the federation Musa Ehizoje also praised the team for its exploits in Kigali and what they are looking forward to achieving in Malaysia.

Because when we started it was more like to see at the end of the tournament how difficult it was but now that we have qualified for the World cup is a testament to the hard work and dedication of everyone in the federation.

Ehizoje corroborated in detail what the federation had mapped out for years especially in terms of recruiting talents before getting to see successes as huge as qualifying for a world cup for Nigeria.

"Nigeria has a structure in terms of development where we monitor our players from under 13, under 15, and then we have the under 17 tournaments where we pick the best of girls from across the country to make the national team for both the under 19 girls and senior women. We also have that structure for the under 19 boys and the senior boys team as well.

"So what we do is that we hold regional tournaments across the six senatorial zones and then the best players from the zone will be selected to represent each zone," he said.

"For example, the best players from the entire south are to form a team that will come to Abuja. And then during the finals where we have all the teams together, we pick the best 22 young players across the country and take them into camping to prepare them for under 19 engagement and elite performance or elite cricket.

"Just before they went for this Under 19 World cup qualifier, we had a mini international tournament in Lagos where we invited the Ghana national team and the Nigeria senior women's team to play triangular series in preparation for the World Cup and it paid off because it put the girls in a competition mode and we were able to correct our flaws before going into the World cup qualifier proper," he added.

Ahead of the world cup, the investment has to be continuous, and it means that we have to prepare the girls in terms of pre-tournament tours before the competition starts. The federation would seek more sponsorship in order not to caught slacking as regards adequate preparations.

Cricket in Nigeria

Despite the sport being introduced to Nigerians by the British Colonial as far back as the 19th century, it has suffered a stunted growth in the very bubbly West Africa nation as most citizens have struggled to accept the sport as one of its traditional sports.

However, the small community that loved the sport kept on participating in various activities with different associations, different partnerships, and series of games both locally and internationally until the country formed a unified national cricket association in 1957 and eventually joined the International Cricket Council (ICC) as an Associate member in 2002.

For Piety, she agrees that watching the sport on TV can be seen as a daunting task for locals but urged Nigerians who are yet to fully embrace it fully that the sport is here to stay.

"The way some people see cricket as boring is how I see other sports as well. I want to say again that cricket never ends and will never stop in the country. The work of investing in the development of the game must continue with the advent of more structures and facilities," she affirms.

In 2023, Nigeria was declared by the General Manager of Development, International Cricket Council William Glenwright as the fastest-growing cricket nation in the world and also won an internationally recognized prize alongside three other nations for the greatest initiative in the sport.