Namibia tasted success in their first outing as they defeated Ireland by 11 runs in the second match of the day at the same venue.
The second match of the day turned out to be a pretty exciting affair as well. Ireland entered the contest as the favourites owing to their recent form and experience of playing in big tournaments. But Namibia showed that they have what it takes to compete with far more established teams as they defeated Andrew Balbirnie and his men by 11 runs.
Namibia didn’t get off to the kind of start they would have liked as the Irish bowlers restricted them to less than 60 runs in the first 10 overs of the innings and claimed two wickets as well. But their middle-order batters Jan Frylinck and JJ Smit stepped up and accelerated just at the right time to propel them to a total of 138/4, which was a competitive score on a track that played a little slow.
Ireland were still expected to chase the target down as it wasn’t a very daunting one. A good opening stand of 45 runs set them well on course to win. But things started to fall apart once the opening stand was broken with Stephen Doheny’s dismissal in the last over of the powerplay. Ireland started losing wickets at regular intervals after that and fell behind the required run rate.
The task looked pretty achievable even when Ireland needed just around 40 runs to win with six wickets and five overs remaining. But Ben Shikongo bowled a match-winning spell for Namibia as he claimed three wickets in the 16th over of the innings to knock Ireland completely out of the game.
Namibia finally bowled Ireland out for 127, winning the match by 11 runs. Shikongo was the pick of the Namibian bowlers with figures of 3/12 to his name, whereas Ruben Trumpelmann, David Wiese and Jan Frylinck claimed a couple of wickets each.
