11 Apr 2013

Sport: Vanuatu seal promotion to World Cricket League 6

11:18 am on 11 April 2013

Vanuatu coach Peter Wooden says his team doesn't plan on letting up, despite wrapping up promotion from the World Cricket League 7 tournament in Botswana.

Vanuatu beat Nigeria by 72 runs on Wednesday night to guarantee a top two finish in the six-team event, which is enough to earn promotion to the Division 6 tournament in Jersey in July.

Peter Wooden says despite having already achieved their primary aim, they have other goals they want to meet.

"When we went through Samoa in Division 8 we went through undefeated and the boys are very keen to try and do that again. We set some pretty high goals - we wanted to make sure that again we focused on improving every game and we believe, as we've shown, the results have taken care of themselves. We had such a great time winning the tournament and going back to Vila was such a celebration, so we'd be disappointed if we didn't go ahead and win it after winning all our pool games so far."

Fiji remain in second place overall, after edging Ghana by 18 runs for their third win in four matches.

Joe Rika top-scored with 76 and as the Blues were dismissed for 223 batting first, before restricting Ghana to 205 all out.

The Blues are currently one win clear of Nigeria in the standings, with a superior net run rate, and Joe Rika says the team is determined to seal promotion with a win against Nigeria on Friday.

Nigeria's a good side and they play Germany on Friday, who have struggled throughout the tournament, but if we stick to our strengths and play how we played today, and keep on improving parts of it, we want to win the match and seal that second place qualifier.