Namibia stay rooted to bottom

By: HELGE SCHUTZ

NAMIBIA’S cricket team remains rooted to the bottom of the Cricket South Africa log following their 96-run defeat against Eastern Province over the weekend.

Namibia’s bowlers did well to restrict Eastern Province to 217 all out in their first innings, but Namibia’s batsmen once again failed to stamp their authority on the match.
In the first innings, Namibia were bundled out for 129 with their young openers Wayne Raw and Stephan Baard scoring one run each, while the highest score was only 34 by number seven batsman Pikky Ya France.
In the second innings Namibia were all out for 208, with Craig Williams scoring 62, while Gerhard Erasmus added 44, but it was not enough as Eastern Province comfortably won the match.
Namibia received four bonus points to move up to 51,78 points after nine matches, while second-from-bottom Griqualand West are on 56,02 points.
Eastern Province, meanwhile, took over at the top of the log after receiving 16,34 bonus points for their victory against Namibia.
They now lead the log with 97,22 points, followed by Boland on 89,18 and South Western Districts on 87,28 points.
Despite Namibia’s poor performance on the log, their top individual players appear prominently on the top batting and bowling averages.
Craig Williams, who scored 62 in Namibia’s second innings, is currently fourth among the leading run scorers with a total of 587 runs at an average of 45,15.
Rassie van der Dussen of North West is the top run scorer with 761 runs at an average of 54,35, followed by Pite van Biljon of Free State (693 runs) and Wesly Landsdale of Griqualand West with 611 runs.
Louis Klazinga is fifth amongst the top bowlers in the competition with a total of 30 wickets in eight matches at an average of 22,80.
Warren Bell of Eastern Province, who had match figures of 8/88 against Namibia, is the leading bowler in the competition with 36 wickets in nine matches at an average of 18,50.
Carl Raubenheimer of Boland is second with 36 wickets at an average of 20,13 while Marcello Piedt of South Western Districts is third with 35 wickets.
Another Namibian bowler, Christi Viljoen, is eighth on the list with 28 wickets at an average of 20,71.
Namibia also lost their T20 match against Eastern Province on Sunday and are now ninth out of 14 teams on four points in the T20 competition.
Kwazulu-Natal lead the log with 11 points, followed by Free State on nine and Eastern Province on eight points.
In the T20 competition, Nicolaas Scholtz is fourth amongst the top batsmen with 102 runs at an average of 51,00, while Louis Klazinga is third among the top bowlers with five wickets at an average of 19,40.
Namibia’s next match in the CSA competition is at home to Border from February 28 to March 3.

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