Africa-Press – Namibia. NAMIBIA grabbed global headlines yesterday with a stunning 55-run victory over Sri Lanka to set the ICC Men’s T20 World Cup Australia 2022 alight with a huge upset.
Going into the match, Sri Lanka were the heavy favourites after recently winning the Asian Cup, but Namibia gave a disciplined team performance to pull off one of the biggest upsets in the history of the competition.
It was the first time that Namibia, a second-tier nation, had beaten a top tier nation at the T20 World Cup, while their improvement over the past year can be gauged by their performance against the same opponents at last year’s T20 World Cup when Sri Lanka cantered to a comfortable seven wicket victory.
On that occasion, Namibia were bundled out for 96, with Sri Lanka comfortably reaching the target for the loss of three wickets, but yesterday, Namibia were much stronger and dominated all areas of the contest, as they scored 163/7, before dismissing Sri Lanka for 108.
Namibia’s victory was greeted with elation amongst the players, but captain Gerhard Erasmus kept his feet on the ground, saying that a lot of work still lay ahead.
“Last year was a special experience for us and I think we have topped that with a great win today, but there’s still a lot of work to do at this tournament. We want to kick on from here and want to qualify for the Super 12 stage, we understand the bigger picture as well,” he said, adding that head coach Pierre de Bruyn had played a major role since joining the team at the beginning of 2019.
“He turned this whole ship around for us since 2019 and immense credit goes to Pierre the way he has instilled a winning culture into this team. With the limited resources that we have in terms of player pools and the rest I guess you have to run a very tight ship and I don’t think there’s anyone else who can run such a tight ship like he has done over three years, and special moments like this is some pay back for a coach like Pierre,” he said.
After losing the toss and being sent in to bat, Namibia got off to a hesitant start, losing Michael van Lingen (3) and Divan La Cock (9) and after three overs were two wickets down with 16 on the board.
The rest of the top order revived the innings with some solid contributions, as Nicol Loftie-Eaton and Gerhard Erasmus both scored 20 and Stephan Baard 26, but the going was slow and when David Wiese was dismissed for a golden duck, it was still anyones game with Namibia’s total at 93/6 and five overs remaining.
JJ Smit and Jan Frylinck, however, added a great 70-run partnership to put Namibia firmly on track and give their bowlers a fine total to defend as they recovered to post 163/7 off their 20 overs.
Frylinck was run out of the last ball of the innings for 44 off 28 balls (4×4), while Smit scored 31 not out off only 16 balls (2×2, 2×6).
Namibia’s bowlers then stepped up and some early wickets immediately put Sri Lanka under pressure.
David Wiese dismissed Kusal Mendis for 6, and when Ben Shikongo dismissed Pathum Nissanka (9) and Danushka Gunathilaka (0) off successive balls they were were three wickets down for 21.
Bhanuka Rajapaksa and captain Dasun Shanaka revived Sri Lanka’s innings with a 34-run partnership, but Namibia’s bowlers kept the run rate down and with the pressure building, more wickets started to fall.
Spinner Bernard Scholtz started the slide, dismissing Rajapaksa for 20, and when Frylinck dismissed Shanaka for 29, their resistance crumbled, as their last five wickets tumbled for only 28 runs.
Frylinck completed a fine all-round performance by taking two wickets for 26 runs to win the man of the match award, while Scholtz (2/18), Shikongo (2/22) and David Wiese (2/16), also took two wickets each.
The win has set Namibia up well for the rest of the tournament and one more win against the Netherlands or UAE should see them through to the Super 12s stage of the competition.
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