Africa-Press – Namibia. EAGLES coach Pierre de Bruyn praised his bowlers after Namibia A pulled off a narrow two-run victory against Ireland Wolves at the Wanderers field on Monday.
In a match shortened to 18-overs-a-side due to overnight rain, and later having to be called off due to lightning, Namibia were adjudged the winners via the Duckworth Lewis system, after scoring 41/4 off seven overs in reply to Ireland A’s 90 all out.
While Namibia’s batting looked a bit shaky against an inspired Irish bowling display, it was their bowlers who paved the way to victory with some superb performances.
“It’s a win, I know it was tight at the end, but we bowled very well, and to bowl that team out for 90 was a fantastic performance by Ben Shikongo, Pikky Ya France and all the bowlers. Their execution of plans and skills was right up there, so I was very pleased from a bowling perspective,” he said.
Shikongo immediately had the visitors in trouble when he dismissed Jeremy Lawlor for a third ball duck, and Ireland A never recovered. Murray Commins with 29 and Curtis Campher with 22 were the only Irish batsmen to reach double figures as Namibia’s bowlers ripped through the batting order, with Shikongo taking 3/14, Pikky Ya France 3/12, and Nicol Loftie-Eaton 2/22.
It didn’t seem much of a total, but Namibia were also soon in trouble against some inspired Irish bowling. Jan Balt and Loftie-Eaton were both dismissed for ducks and when Lohan Louwrens was dismissed for 6, they had three wickets down with only eight runs on the board.
Shaun Fouche and Karl Birkenstock revived the innings with a 26-run partnership, before Fouche was dismissed for 12, and when lightning brought an end to play, Birkenstock was 16 not out and JJ Smit 4 not out with the total at 41/4 off seven overs.
De Bruyn admitted that the batting was not up to scratch, but said he was trying to give more opportunities to fringe players and upcoming youngsters to broaden his squad.
“From a batting perspective, they are still young players and are learning their trade and that’s what my focus is in this series – to create more opportunities for fringe players that are always in the squad but don’t get much game time, while also blending in young players that I have identified in the system and that I want to give opportunities to have a taste of this level of cricket,” he said.
“I want to make our pool of players bigger, I can’t just have 15 or 16 players to select from going forward, especially with the schedule we have – the bigger the pool, the stronger the competition and the more difficult selection will become, which I want, so I’m trying to build some depth in our system. For a very long time we’ve had major problems with our top order batting, so that’s definitely a focus area for me, to create more competition around those spots,” he added.
Namibia A and the Ireland Wolves will play a total of three T20 (the second T20 starts at 10h00 at Wanderers today) and five One Day International matches over the next two weeks. De Bruyn said it was a great opportunity for the younger players but also called for patience to allow them to develop.
“There’s still seven games left, which means opportunities for us and the main thing is that we need to be patient, as supporters and coaches. These young players only know club cricket which is poor and not at the standard for them to understand the right level of cricket,” he said.
“So we need to be patient with them – they will make mistakes, but it’s how quickly they learn from those mistakes and I believe that they are absolutely in the right environment with the right people and senior players to learn from mistakes and get educated, so I’m looking forward to giving more players opportunities in the one day games going forward,” he added.
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