SOURCE: The Namibian https://www.namibian.com.na/100374/read/Eagles-geared-up-for-Uganda
NAMIBIA’s national cricket team, the Eagles, return to international duty for the first time in more than a year when they host Uganda in a five-match series, starting at the Wanderers field on Saturday.
It will be the first time since January last year when Namibia travelled to Oman for a tour that was cut short by the Sultan of Oman’s death, and national coach Pierre de Bruyn said they were excited and looking forward to the Uganda series.
Äfter 13 months we are now finally going to play international cricket again, so there’s a lot of excitement in the camp ahead of the series. We’ve trained a lot, which helped us to sharpen up physically and mentally, and to improve our skill levels, but now we can finally put on our Eagles shirts and represent our country again, and measure where we are,” he said.
“We are really looking forward to this series and Uganda are a dangerous side, so we won’t underestimate them, and we are also playing international T20 matches so the rankings are important. We want to make the country proud again, we want to continue building on our winning culture, and I also want to give some of our younger fringe players a chance to strengthen our depth a bit,” he added.
De Bruyn named a squad of 18 players for the series against Uganda which will consist of three T20 and two 50-over international matches.
The squad includes four young newcomers in all-rounders Divan La Cock, Michael van Lingen and Shaun Fouche, and pace bowler Dewald Nell, while other regular squad members like Nicol Loftie-Eaton, Michau du Preez, Mauritius Ngupita and Ruben Trumpelmann still have to make their official debuts for Namibia.
Besides them, there is an experienced core of players consisting of Stephan Baard, Craig Williams, JP Kotze, JJ Smit, Jan Frylinck, Karl Birkenstock, Bernard Scholtz, and the captain Gerhard Erasmus, who is still only 25 years old.
De Bruyn said he was also keen to give some of the newcomers a chance.
“Michael (Van Lingen) is an incredible talent from the coast and we don’t have much depth amongst our pace bowlers, so I also want to give Dewald Nell a chance, to see if they can make an impact at this level.”
National captain Erasmus said he expected tough competition from Uganda.
“Uganda are a proud cricketing nation and I’m sure they want to show that they can be a force in Africa, so I’m expecting very strong competition from them.
“But it’s the national team’s first series in 13 months, so we want to set a good foundation for the future, we want to do the basics right, and hopefully we can build a winning culture building up to the World Cup later this year. We haven’t had many opportunities to play, so each match is worth its weight in gold,” he said.
The first T20 match starts at 14h30 on Saturday, followed by two more on Monday, at 10h00 and 14h30.
The series will conclude with two 50-over matches on Wednesday and Thursday, with both starting at 10h00. All the matches are at the Wanderers field.
The Namibian squad is as follows:
Gerhard Erasmus (captain), Stephan Baard, JP Kotze, Craig Williams, Michau du Preez, Nicol Loftie-Eaton, JJ Smit, Jan Frylinck, Karl Birkenstock, Ruben Trumpelmann, Divan La Cock, Michael van Lingen, Shaun Fouche, Bernard Scholtz, Ben Shikongo, Mauritius Ngupita, Tangeni Lungameni and Dewald Nell.
