History was made at the Zayed Cricket Stadium in Abu Dhabi as Namibia recorded a first-ever win at an ICC Men’s T20 World Cup and skipper Gerhard Erasmus was quick to explain just how much it meant to the side.
History was made at the Zayed Cricket Stadium in Abu Dhabi as Namibia recorded a first-ever win at an ICC Men’s T20 World Cup and skipper Gerhard Erasmus was quick to explain just how much it meant to the side.
Qualifying for this event for the first time, Namibia fell to a heavy defeat against Sri Lanka in the opener, and looked to be in similar trouble here when Pieter Seelaar bowled a wicket maiden to reduce them to 53 for 3 while chasing a target of 165.
But that was when David Wiese joined Erasmus in the middle and the pair added 93 for the fourth wicket.
While Erasmus was not able to see them all the way home, Wiese and JJ Smit got Namibia over the line, and the skipper could barely contain his delight.
He said: “We run quite a tight ship in a small cricketing nation, these guys put their hearts on the line, from the coaching staff, the management and the administration set-up, to a small bunch of players, so this is a bit of a payback for them and well done to the players.
“It’s a special moment in Cricket Namibia’s history, first win on the World Cup stage. The Dutch have had the better of us in the past couple of years. We had to step up on the day, at the halfway mark it was a pretty tough chase but luckily David batted really well.
“It was a decent surface, some of the bowlers bowled particularly well to the dimensions of the field. We’ve been known to be a side to bowl in those clever ways and we did well to an extent; although I do think both sides didn’t quite nail it with the ball and in the field particularly well.”
Namibia did enough however, holding the Netherlands to 164 for four when at one point it seemed that they might get 15-20 more runs.
But it was with the ball that the game got away from the Dutch, with skipper Seelaar admitting that he may have made different decisions when it came to his bowling selections if he had the opportunity once again – taking himself out of the attack for six overs after bowling a wicket maiden.
He said: “Namibia bowled well but not entirely great and we were worse. In hindsight, obviously, you make choices and in hindsight you see whether they were right or wrong and we went for a couple of chances that didn’t go well. You go back and look at those decisions. It’s very tough.
“If Ireland beat Sri Lanka then we’re not completely out of it. We have to keep hope but otherwise we have to sign off with a good performance against Sri Lanka because we haven’t been quite good enough.”
