Africa-Press – Namibia. Gerhard Erasmus will lead a well-balanced squad of youth and experience to their fourth successive Men’s T20 World Cup which starts in India and Sri Lanka next month.
The inspirational Erasmus, who will also captain Namibia for the fourth time at the global showpiece, has developed into one of the world’s leading players from an Associate nation. He has already won the Associate player of the year award on two occasions, while he is Namibia’s most capped international T20 player with 77 caps. He is also their top T20 batter with more than 2 000 runs at an average of 38,21, while he has taken 58 wickets.
He is one of five players aged 30 or above, while six are between 23 and 28, and four younger than 23.
In terms of international T20 experience, six members of the squad have more than 50 caps, with four ranging between 14 and 44 caps, while four have less than 10 caps. Nine players remain from the 2024 T20 World Cup in the West Indies and the United States.
Bernard Scholtz, who is the oldest player in the squad at 35, is just behind Erasmus with 76 caps, while he is Namibia’s top T20 bowler with 79 wickets. He had a great season in 50-over ODI matches last year, taking the second most wickets in the world, while he is currently ranked sixth in the world.
JJ Smit with 67 caps is a match-winner with both bat and ball, having scored more than 1 000 runs with a top score of 111 not out and having taken 66 wickets, while Jan Frylinck (74 caps) has also scored more than 1 000 runs with a top score of 134 and taken 63 wickets.
Nicol Loftie-Eaton (with 51 caps) is another top all rounder having scored 656 runs with a top score of 101, while he has taken 23 wickets with a best performance of 4/10.
Wicket-keeper Zane Green has won 73 caps, scoring close to 1 000 runs with a top score of 75 not out.
Ruben Trumpelmann, with 44 caps and Ben Shikongo (40 caps) will lead Namibia’s pace bowling attack along with the 20-year-old Jack Brassell who has 18 caps and 17-year-old Max Heingo who burst onto the scene when he took 2/32 against South Africa last year.
Louren Steenkamp and WP Myburgh have strengthened the top order batting choices, along with Malan Kruger, while all-rounders JC Balt and Dylan Leicher add competition and depth.
Namibia will be competing in Pool A against the hosts India, Pakistan, Netherlands and the United States.
The Namibian squad is currently in Cape Town and will resume their preparations tomorrow. Head coach Craig Williams said the selection process was not easy.
“The selection prcess is never easy, and we’ve obviously had to leave some players out. But we’re a big selection committee and we’re a big coaching staff, so we’ve had a lot of meetings and looked at stats over the year. We feel that we’ve made the right decisions, we’ve got a very good balance in our current squad, and we are covering all departments,” he said.
“We had to look at Indian conditions as well and what would be required for that, so selection went a lot around what we needed going into Delhi and Chennai in India, as well as Colombo in Sri Lanka,” he added.
The Namibian squad is as follows:
Gerhard Erasmus (captain), Louren Steenkamp, Jan Frylinck, WP Myburgh, Malan Kruger, Zane Green, Nicol-Loftie Eaton, JJ Smit, Ruben Trumpelmann, JC Balt, Dylan Leicher, Bernard Scholtz, Ben Shikongo, Jack Brassell, Max Heingo.
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