All winners in Karnataka series

The visiting Indian state side Karnataka beat Namibia 3-2 in their inaugural cricket series, but both sides were winners, with invaluable experience gained, while ties were strengthened for the future. 

On Sunday, Namibia won the final match by five wickets, but by then Karnataka had already won the series by three games to two. Their series triumph was built on some excellent top-order batting, which saw them comfortably winning two matches by nine wickets and a third by five wickets.

Namibia, however, were worthy opponents, going on to win two matches by five wickets. 

At the prizegiving ceremony at Desi Dhaba Restaurant on Sunday evening, the Karnataka players won all of the individual awards. 

Nikin Jose was the top batter of the series with a total of 377 runs in five innings’, which included two centuries and five 50s. He had a great average of 125,67 and a top score of 103. 

His team mate LR Chetan came second with 226 runs at an average of 75,33 and a top score of 120, while Namibia’s Jan Frylinck came third with 190 runs at an average of 47,50 and a top score of 109. 

Vidhwath Kaverappa of Karnataka won the bowler of the series award with six wickets at an average of 21,83, while Frylinck came second with five wickets at an average of 36,80, and Vijaykumar Vyshak of Karnataka third with five wickets at an average of 43,80.

Jose also won the player of the series award with a total of 1 287 points, followed by Frylinck on 775 and Namibian captain Gerhard Erasmus on 759. 

At Sunday’s prizegiving Karnataka’s manager Anutosh Poll said it had been a great series. 

“This has been a wonderful experience for all of us. It was a hard-fought series, and what really caught our imagination was the fielding of the Namibian team – I think they were outstanding,” he said. 

“Both sides have good batters up the order and there were some substantial scores, and though it was a slow wicket the medium pacers came to the forefront. But it was a spinners paradise and their were quality spinners on both sides who excelled throughout the series and I really want to thank Cricket Namibia for giving us such wonderful matches at the United ground. We would now like to invite the Namibian team to come and play in Karnataka,” he added. 

Namibian coach Pierre de Bruyn lauded the tour, saying some quality cricket was on display. 

“I thought it was an excellent series between two quality teams. The matches were well fought throughout, the Eagles chased down a total of 361 in one match, and then just watching their batters and how they executed their innings for me was outstanding. We have learnt a lot from that, especially with their rotation in the middle period, knowing exactly where those gaps are and getting the balls into those areas,” he said. 

“But I think the most important thing is, is the quality of cricket that we’ve seen over the last two weeks in Namibia, that’s a big positive, because you can only measure yourself against top quality and we now have got that reference which is great. The batters know that they faced a couple of IPL bowlers and that’s their reference now, so there were a lot of positives and it was very exciting,” he added. 

The cricket world’s attention now turns to Zimbabwe with the final 50-over World Cup qualifier taking place in Harare from 18 June to 9 July, when 10 nations will battle it out for the final two qualifying spots at the 2023 Cricket World Cup. 

Namibia narrowly missed out on qualifying for that tournament, but De Bruyn said they were looking forward to new challenges. 

“Missing out on the Zimbabwe qualifier was painful for the last couple of months, but we’ve parked that now and reset our schedule. We are now fully focussed on the World Cup T20 qualifier at the end of the year here in Windhoek, where we will be aiming to qualify for a third T20 World Cup next year. So we we are now building towards that and looking forward to host Uganda in three weeks time here in Windhoek,” he said. 

De Bruyn added that he was committed to continue coaching Namibia for the forseeable future. 

“I’m looking forward to the journey ahead. I’ve been committed to this for the past four and a half years, I’ve enjoyed every minute of these tournaments and they keep you going, because it’s all about quality and quality drives you.  I’m looking forward to the future, to see if we can qualify for another world cup and get better.”