After cruising through the group stages of the T20 World Cup Africa Qualifier in Harare, Namibia face Tanzania this morning for a place in the final and a ticket to next year’s T20 World Cup.
The FNB Namibian Eagles stormed into the semifinals after three huge victories to finish on top of Group A and will now take on Tanzania who came second in Group B, while the winners of Group B, Zimbabwe, take on Kenya in the other semifinal today.
The winners of today’s semifinals will qualify for Saturday’s final, but more importantly, they will also qualify for the 2026 T20 World Cup which takes place in India and Sri Lanka in February and March next year.
Namibia coach Craig Williams said they are well prepared and looking forward to the match.
“All the preparations for our match against Tanzania have been done; the guys are in a good space at the moment, and we’ve played some really good cricket, so I’m just trying to keep the camp nice and calm and then we wil go and do our job tomorrow,” he said yesterday.
“We haven’t played much against Tanzania, but we’ve been watching them and analysing them so I think we’ve covered our bases. They’ve obviously been playing quite good cricket to make it through to the semifinals, and they beat Uganda to get there. But we have prepared well, we don’t have any injuries, and the boys are all in a good space, so we’ve just got to go and execute our game plan to the best of our ability,” he added.
Namibia opened their campaign with a 136-run victory against Kenya on 26 September when they amassed 241 runs, with JJ Smit scoring 111 off 39 balls and Gerhard Erasmus 58, before restricting Kenya to 105/7.
Two days later they thrashed Nigeria by 117 runs, as Namibia amassed 235/6 with Jan Frylinck scoring 134 and Louren Steenkamp 51, while Nigeria were restricted to 118/9, with Nicol Loftie-Eaton taking 3/24.
In their final group match against Malawi on Tuesday, Loftie-Eaton produced a stunning performance to lead Namibia to an eight-wicket victory.
Opening bowler Ben Shikongo and JJ Smit struck early to reduce Malawi to 20/3, but Loftie-Eaton put the issue beyond doubt when he took four wickets off successive balls to leave Malawi teetering at 28/7.
Malawi’s tail-enders started a slight revival to take the total to 71, but it was no problem for Namibia who reached the target for the loss of two wickets off only eight overs, with Malan Kruger scoring 28, Jan Frylinck 22 and man of the match Loftie-Eaton 14 not out.
Tanzania opened their campaign with a seven-wicket victory against Botswana on 26 September, when they restricted Botswana to 122/6 and then reached the target for the loss of three wickets, with Arun Yadav scoring 62.
Two days later they produced the upset of the tournament when they beat Uganda who had qualified for last year’s T20 World Cup in the West Indies and the United States, by nine runs.
Tanzania reached 128/6 with opener Raghav Dhawan scoring 39, and then restricted Uganda to 119/9 with opening bowler Khalidy Juma taking 4/13.
On 30 September they suffered a 113-run defeat to Zimbabwe, but by then they had already booked their semifinal spot.
Zimbabwe amassed 221/5 before skittling Tanzania out for 108, with Abhik Patwa scoring 32 and captain Kassim Nassoro 25.
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