Posted by Maiden appearance for Namibia in this edition of the T20 World Cup that’s scheduled to commence on 17th of October in UAE. Namibia have named a 15+1 man squad for their debut T20 World Cup campaign.
Namibia have lately been very active competing South Africa Emerging, Zimbabwe Emerging, Uganda and have had a few league games for their preparation leading up to their maiden ICC T20 World Cup campaign. Namibia do get a couple practise games on reaching Oman. David Wiese inclusion in the team has grabbed eyeballs, former South Africa cricket who’ll now be playing for Namibia is an experienced contender and has a lot of T20 cricket experience having played a lot of franchise cricket all around the globe, being a pace all-rounder he’ll hold a key role in the XI and must be up for it.
Namibia qualified for the T20 World Cup after handing upset to co-host Oman in the 2019 World Cup Qualifiers and will miss a couple of mates from that side as they’d retired post the Qualifiers. Zane Green has been good at the top but the other opener has been a concern for Namibia, they’ve had a lot of experimentation at the top with Stephan Baard, Jan Nicol and Craig Williams. Middle and death overs, skipper Gerhard Erasmus will have to pace well along with Michau du Preez and David Wiese. J.J Smit is Namibia’s key in the death overs, recently had a dream outing with the bat and will wish to put up a few more, he’ll need cameos from Michael van Lingen and tailenders.
Namibia produce a lot of pace all rounders and lack spinners, just a couple of spinners in Jan Nicol Loftie-Eaton and Bernard Scholtz, tournament being in UAE and lacking a spinner will be a concern, their pacers often fill the missing spinner slot. They surely aren’t short of pacers, lot in bank to chose from. Ben Shikongo, J.J Smith, Ruben Trumpelmann and Jan Frylinck are their go to pacers with many more available as pace all-rounders who’ll be featuring in the side as batting all-rounders.
NAMIBIA’S SQUAD FOR T20 WORLD CUP : Gerhard Erasmus (C), Stephan Baard, Karl Birkenstock, Michau du Preez, Jan Frylinck, Zane Green, Jan Nicol Loftie-Eaton, Bernard Scholtz, Ben Shikongo, JJ Smit, Ruben Trumpelmann, Michael van Lingen, David Wiese, Craig Williams, Pikky Ya France. TRAVELLING RESERVE : Mauritius Ngupita.
Namibia will first have to battle round 1 fixtures, they’ll be up against Sri Lanka on 18th of October, next they play Netherlands on 20th of October and for their final round 1 game they’ll meet Ireland on 20th of October, isn’t the easiest of groups with Sri Lanka and Ireland to defeat and Netherlands too are competitive side.
Namibia may or may not qualify to the super 12 but will get the recognition they’ve deserved for their good cricket and exposure for the youth of Namibia to dream of playing at an ICC event.
Bureau of sports 