ABU DHABI: Round 1 match: A not out 66 runs by David Wiese resulted in a memorable victory for Namibia and pushing Netherland away from the tournament. Namibia Eagles won against Netherlands by 6 wickets with an over remaining.
Namibia won the toss and opted to chase maybe due to the nightmare performance in batting first against Sri Lanka in the first match (joint-lowest T20I total – 96).
Both teams lost their opening matches, and a win here was mandatory for survival.
Netherlands scored 164 for 4 wickets in 20 overs. Max O’Dowd put up an amazing batting display to score 70 off 56 balls before being run out. Chasing the Dutch total, Namibia was in a spot of bother at 52 for 3 wickets in the 9th over. However, captain Gerhad Erasmus (32 off 22 balls) and David Weise 66 off 40 depicted an uprise in the middle order to fight back. The Eagles needed 38 runs off the last 5 overs with 7 wickets in hand and seemed on course. Timm Gugten took the wicket of Erasmus in the 16th over, to give Netherland some hope. However, David together with JJ Smit (14 runs) kept the Namibia Eagle’s dreams alive and reached 166 runs for 4 wickets. David Wiese was named player of the match.(RZ)
[Image credit icc-cricket.com]
