Despite losing out on a place at the 2016 Cricket T20 World Cup, Namibian players excelled at the T20 World Cup Qualifier, with Bernard Scholtz winning the player of the tournament award while Stephen Baard was the top run scorer.
The left-arm spinner, Scholtz, was the stand-out bowler of the competition taking 14 wickets for 154 runs at an average of 11 and an economy-rate of just 5,70.
The player of the tournament award is worked out on a points system that sees three players from every game awarded one, two or three points with the man of the match receiving three.
When all the points were tallied, Scholtz was the clear winner on eight points, ahead of a group of players on seven points, which included compatriot Gerrie Snyman, Ireland’s John Mooney, Akeem Dodson of the USA and Scotland’s Alasdair Evans.
Scholtz was the top wicket taker at the tournament along with Alasdair Evans of Scotland and John Mooney of Ireland on 14, while Kevin O’ Brien of Ireland and Haseeb Amjad of Hong Kong each took 12 wickets.
Nadeem Ahmed of Hong Kong had the best bowling figures of five wickets for 12 runs, and was followed by Evans of Scotland (5/24) and Scholtz (4/11).
Scholtz’ return of 4/11 came against Papua New Guinea in which he produced the best individual performance of the tournament. With PNG well set at 90 for four wickets, Scholtz took three wickets in a maiden over to put Namibia in charge and they went on to comfortably win that match by 49 runs.
Namibian opening batsman Stephen Baard, meanwhile, was the top run scorer of the tournament with 309 runs. He was the only batsman to score more than 300 runs with Ben Cooper of the Netherlands following a distant second on 241 runs, while Jatinder Singh of Oman was third with 213 runs.
Baard also scored the most sixes in the tournament with 14, followed by Mohammad Shahzad of Afghanistan with 13 and Gerrie Snyman of Namibia with 12.
Baard had the fifth highest average of 51,50, while he also had the third highest individual score of 87 runs.
Irfan Ahmed of Hong Kong had the highest individual score of 98, followed by Jonty Jenner of Jersey with 90 not out, while Gerrie Snyman was fifth with 82.
Morris Ouma of Kenya had the highest average of 92,00. followed by Preston Mommsen of Scotland (77,00) and Navneet Dhaliwal of Canada (64,50).
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