Eagles with backs to the wall 

With only one point from their opening two matches in their Trinations series against Scotland and Oman, the FNB Namibian Eagles have a lot of catching up to do at the halfway stage of the tournament.

On 4 April they lost their opening match against Oman by three wickets, while two days later their match against Scotland was abandoned due to rain.

That one point from the draw put Namibia on 20 points from 26 matches, but they are now well behind the leaders on the Cricket World Cup Division 2 log, lying sixth out of eight nations.

Despite the first round match between Scotland and Oman also being rained out, both nations are well-placed in the competition, with Scotland second on 32 points from 26 matches and Oman fourth on 27 points from 22 matches.

With the top four nations progressing to the final qualifier for next year’s World Cup that Namibia will host along with South Africa and Zimbabwe, the pressure is now building on the Eagles to qualify for the World Cup.

Namibia coach Craig Williams was, however, not too perturbed, saying they could well have won both matches with a bit of luck.

“Against Oman we unfortunately had a mistake in the field, a dropped catch which probably cost us the match. Hammad Mirza, who scored a century, was dropped on 10 – it was a difficult catch but if we took that I’m sure we would have won,” he says.

“Against Scotland, I think we fought well to get a good score on the board and I definitely don’t think Scotland would have chased that because the pitch was extremely difficult. So all in all, I think we played some good cricket and the results of the first two games were not really a true reflection of the game,” he adds.

“Besides that Ruben Trumpelmann got sick – he turned up in the morning and had the stomach bug. That was also a blow for us, not to have our strike bowler,” he says.

The match against Oman went down to the wire, with them eventually sealing the victory with five balls to spare.

Namibia posted a decent total of 268 for seven wickets with most of their top order batters getting among the runs.

Gerhard Erasmus top scored with 54, while WP Myburgh added 43, Zane Green 42, Louren Steenkamp 32 and Dylan Leicher 30 not out. It was Erasmus’ 18th half century from 65 matches in One Day Internationals (ODI), which puts him way ahead of the rest, with Jan Frylinck following on six, Michael van Lingen on five, and JJ Smit and Green on three each.

Erasmus is also well ahead on total runs scored with 2 240 runs at an average of 37.97, followed by Van Lingen with 1 316 runs, Nicol Loftie-Eaton on 1 113 and JJ Smit on 1 071.

In reply, Namibia had Oman in trouble with three wickets down for 45 runs, but they could not capitalise and Mirza led Oman’s revival with a fine century.

He eventually scored 112 not out off 128 balls (12×4, 1×6), while Mujibur Ali added 43 and Wasim Ali 62, and with Mirza hitting the winning six off Max Heingo’s final over, they reached 274/7 with five balls to spare.

Heingo, who only turned 18 a month ago, was Namibia’s top wicket taker with three wickets for 59 runs, while Jack Brassell took 2/61 and Erasmus 2/54.

Against Scotland, Namibia were in deep trouble, losing their first four wickets for only 36 runs, but a century partnership between Steenkamp and Green revived their fortunes.

Steenkamp scored 78 off 99 balls (6×4, 2×6) while Green added 62 off 87 balls (6×4) as they reached 189/8 off 46.4 overs when the rains came down and the match had to be abandoned.

Green’s 62 also saw him becoming the fifth Namibian player to pass 1 000 runs in ODI cricket as he moved to 1 046.

The series resumes at the FNB Namibia Cricket Ground today, when Scotland take on Oman at 09h30, while Namibia’s remaining matches are against Oman on Friday and Scotland on Sunday.

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