Africa-Press – Namibia. Namibia lost the T20 World Cup Africa Qualifier final against Zimbabwe on Saturday but had already reached their main objective of qualifying for next year’s T20 World Cup.
Saturday’s final went down to the wire with the momentum shifting back and forth before Zimbabwe beat Namibia by seven wickets with four balls to spare.
Namibia scored a competitive 167/7 in their 20 overs, with Zimbabwe reaching the target with four balls remaining and seven wickets in hand.
Namibia coach Craig Williams said they didn’t play their best cricket in the final.
“The final result was obviously disappointing for us – we didn’t play our best cricket in all three phases, but we still managed to take Zimbabwe to the last over, so it just shows what a strong team we have become.
“But in terms of the tournament as a whole, to qualify for the World Cup, that was obviously our main aim. To win the tournament would have been great, but unfortunately we just came unstuck against Zimbabwe,” he added.
After being sent in to bat, Namibia lost Jan Frylinck early on for four runs, while Malan Kruger and Nicol Loftie-Eaton were both dismissed for 13 to leave Namibia at 55/3 after seven overs.
Gerhard Erasmus and Louren Steenkamp shared a 44-run fourth wicket partnership before Steenkamp was caught in the deep for a top score of 40 off 27 balls, but the rest of Namibia’s middle order weighed in with solid contributions to keep the momentum going.
Erasmus was dismissed for 38 off 32 balls, JJ Smit scored 23 off 20, including two sixes, and Ruben Trumpelmann scored 18 not out off 11 balls as they posted a competitive target. Richard Ngarava was Zimbabwe’s best bowler with three wickets for 26 runs.
In reply, Zimbabwe lost Brian Bennett for 15, but Tadiwanashe Marumani and Dion Myers revived their innnings with an 88-run partnership for the second wicket.
Their batting was a bit slow, though, and when Bernard Scholtz dismissed Myers for 44 and Sikandar Raza for a golden duck after a great catch by Erasmus, Zimbabwe still needed 51 runs off the final five overs for victory.
Maruma, however, was their anchor, scoring 74 not out off 61 balls, while Ryan Burl scored 26 not out as they reached the target with four balls to spare.
Scholtz was Namibia’s best bowler, taking two wickets for 21 runs.
The 2026 ICC T20 World Cup will be held in India and Sri Lanka in February and March next year, and Williams said they are already planning ahead.
“We’ve got a lot of plans moving forward now – the world cup is at the start of February, so we are already planning for November, December and January, and it looks like there are a couple of teams that want to come tour Namibia in November and December as well. So it’s all good for us, we took a lot of learnings out of this tournament, and Im just glad we could pull it through for Namibia,” he said.
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