Early years Cricket has been played in Nigeria since the late 19th century when the game was introduced by the British. Contacts between the administration in Lagos and their counterparts in
Gold Coast (now
Ghana) led to an international at Race Course (now
Tafawa Balewa Square),
Lagos on 25 May 1904, the
Gold Coast winning by 22 runs. Matches resumed after the war with a five-day match in
Lagos in 1947 which ended in a draw. The 1949 match went the way of the Gold Coast. As the number of Europeans working in the country reduced, the quality of the African players increased and cricket began to be organised on multi-racial lines in 1956. The West Africa team took part in the
ICC Trophy tournaments of
1982 and
1997 before withdrawing from the
2001 tournament in Ontario. Nigeria still continued to play on their own on occasion, The West African Cricket Conference ceased to exist in 2002, They finished 5th in the Africa Cricket Association Championships in 2004, their only win coming against the last-placed Tanzania, thus failing to qualify for the
2005 ICC Trophy. In August 2006, Nigeria took part in Division Two of the
World Cricket League Africa Region in Tanzania, finishing last. This originally relegated them to Division Three, They won the North West Africa Championship in 2007 and 2008. Nigeria played in Division Two of the World Cricket League Africa Region in 2008 and came second hence qualifying for
2009 ICC World Cricket League Division Seven. They came 3rd in the tournament thus remaining in the division . Nigeria came second in tournament, thus qualifying for
2011 ICC World Cricket League Division Six. Then the team went to South Africa in May 2011 to participate in 2011 ICC Africa Division Two (T20) en route to qualification of
2012 ICC World Twenty20. They won the tournament and qualified for 2011 ICC Africa Division One. In August 2018, they were included in the
2018 Africa T20 Cup tournament.
2018–present In April 2018, the ICC decided to grant full
Twenty20 International (T20I) status to all its members. Therefore, all
Twenty20 matches played between Nigeria and other
ICC members since 1 January 2019 have the T20I status. Nigeria's first T20I match was against
Kenya on 20 May 2019, after finishing second in the
North-Western sub-region qualification group, advancing to the Regional Final of the
2018–19 ICC World Twenty20 Africa Qualifier tournament. In July 2019, the ICC suspended
Zimbabwe Cricket, with the team barred from taking part in ICC events. As a result of their suspension, the ICC confirmed that Nigeria would replace them in the
2019 ICC T20 World Cup Qualifier tournament. ==Grounds==