Africa-Press – Namibia. AFTER the euphoria of the T20 Cricket World Cup, it will be back to the grindstone for Namibia when they take on Oman in the opening match of their ICC Cricket World Cup League 2 Tri-Nations tournament at the Wanderers field today.
The tournament, which forms part of an arduous qualifying process for the 2023 50-over World Cup, will also feature the United Arab Emirates, with the three sides set to battle it out in numerous one day internationals over the next 10 days.
In Oman they face the pace-setters of the tournament, as they are currently well ahead on the log, on 27 points, while Namibia are languishing in fifth position on eight points.
Namibia, however, have 11 matches in hand on Oman, but they will have to start winning if they hope to qualify for the 2023 World Cup, which will be even more difficult to achieve than the recent T20 World Cup.
Only the top three teams in League 2 will progress to the final 2023 World Cup qualifying round, and whereas the T20 World Cup had 16 competing nations, the 2023 50-over World Cup will only feature 10 nations.
Eight of those places will be taken by the world’s leading cricketing nations which are currently competing in the ICC Super League, where the top seven teams will join the hosts India, at the 2023 World Cup.
That leaves two more places for the rest to compete for and with several test playing nations also in the qualifying mix, the competition will be extremely tough.
The bottom five teams of the Super League, which currently consists of South Africa, New Zealand, Afghanistan, Zimbabwe and the Netherlands, will join the top three teams of League 2, as well as two more qualifying teams in the final World Cup qualifier in 2023.
Besides the race for a place at the 2023 World Cup, there will also be a lot to play for in the League 2 tournament itself. The winning team could be promoted to the next Super League cycle, which will lead to a bigger ICC grant and regular competitions against the likes of Australia, England, India and Pakistan.
The bottom two teams in League 2, however, could be relegated to the Challenge League against the likes of Canada, Uganda, Singapore and Hong Kong, which will also have a negative financial impact.
With Namibia currently receiving annual funding of US$1,2 million (close to N$20 million) from the ICC, they cannot afford to drop out of League 2, which coach Pierre de Bruyn described as their ‘bread and butter’ competition.
Oman will be a tough nut to crack, especially since they posted a comfortable 32-run victory over Namibia in their last encounter, a T20 World Cup warm-up match in Dubai, last month.
Oman posted 152 runs for eight wickets, with opener Aqib Ilyas scoring 30 and captain Zeeshan Maqsood 29, while there were solid contributions right down the batting order.
In reply, Namibia were restricted to 120 for nine wickets, with medium pace bowler Kaleemullah taking four wickets for 23 runs, and spinners Khawar Ali and Aqib Ilyas two wickets each.
In the League 2 competition, Oman have won 13 of their 18 matches to date, with only four defeats, but Namibia will be encouraged by the fact that they inflicted one of those defeats at Oman’s home turf in Muscat on 8 January 2020.
On that occasion, Craig Williams scored a great century, reaching 129 not out off only 94 balls, while Zane Green added 62, JJ Smit 31 and Karl Birkenstock 29 as they posted a formidable total of 324 for seven wickets. Oman were then dismissed for 272, with JJ Smit leading the way by taking five wickets for 44 runs, as Namibia completed a resounding 52-run victory.
Smit, who will captain the team for the first time in the absence of the injured Gerhard Erasmus, will once again have a crucial role to play in both the batting and bowling departments, while his leadership credentials will be tested to the full.
With Namibia’s star performer at the T20 World Cup, David Wiese also missing due to his international T10 franchise commitments, Namibia will lack some experience, but as De Bruyn said earlier this week, he wants to see new players stepping up to try and cement their places in the team.
Namibia has a solid batting line-up, headed by experienced campaigners like Williams, Stephen Baard and Zane Green, and hopefully upcoming players like Michael van Lingen, Nicol Loftie-Eaton and Michau du Preez can step up with some solid performances.
Among the bowlers, Namibia’s T20 World Cup stars Smit, Ruben Trumpelmann, Jan Frylinck and Bernard Scholtz will lead the charge, but the series will also provide opportunities for others like Karl Birkenstock, Ben Shikongo, Pikkie Ya France and Mauritius Ngupita to stake their claims.
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