NAMIBIA’s national women’s cricket team got off to a great start at the Kwibuka T20 tournament in Kigali when they comfortably won their opening two matches.
On Sunday they beat Nigeria by eight wickets and followed that up with a 43-run victory against Rwanda yesterday.
In Sunday’s match, Nigeria won the toss and elected to bat, but they were soon in trouble, losing wickets at regular intervals and could only post a total of 52 runs for 8 wickets off their 20 overs.
Didi Foerster and Sylvia Shihepo combined early on to run out Nigeria’s opening batter Kehinde Abdulquadri for a duck, and when Shihepo added two more quick wickets, Nigeria had slumped to 13 for three.
Nigeria staged a bit of a recovery, but off-spinner Victoria Hamunyela took centre stage to put Namibia firmly in charge.
She dismissed Blessing Etim off her first ball and then ripped through Nigeria’s middle order with three more wickets to leave them reeling at 41 for eight wickets, before they eventually reached 52 off their 20 overs.
Hamunyela was Namibia’s top bowler, taking four wickets for eight runs off four overs, which also won her the player of the match award, while Shihepo took two wickets for four runs off three overs.
Adri van der Merwe and Arrasta Diergaardt got off to a fine start in Namibia’s run chase, putting on 23 runs off four overs, before Van der Merwe was dismissed for 13 off 15 balls.
Yasmeen Khan was dismissed for one, but Kayleen Green joined Diergaardt to take Namibia to a comfortable victory, with more than half their overs still in hand.
Green remained not out on 12, while Diergaardt was not out on 26 off 27 balls (4×4).
In yesterday’s match against Rwanda, Namibia scored 101 for six wickets in their 20 overs and then restricted Rwanda to 58 for eight wickets.
The top scorers in Namibia’s innings were Namibia’s top batters were Adri van der Merwe with 29, Arrasta Diergaardt with 20 and Sune Wittmann with 22 not out, while their top bowlers were Victoria Hamunyela (two wickets for 14 runs), Kayleen Green (2/8) and Wilka Mwatile (2/7).
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