Good evening sports fans! I hope you’ve had an exciting day, if not then business is about to pick up!
Game 1 of day 2 was between associate nations Namibia and Oman and it was a thriller. In fact it was what you’d call a low scoring thriller. Looking at the score card you’d probably think it’s not worth watching the highlights, but I promise you, if you download the World Cup app and do just that you won’t be disappointed, this was a game of boundaries and wickets!
Namibia won the toss at The Kensington Oval, Barbados and elected to field first. I think that’s probably the right call from the Namibian Eagles, stick Oman in, bowl them out cheap and then knock the runs off in short order. That all seemed initially to go to plan, the Omanis looked to have read the script. Namibia’s opening bowler Ruben Trumpelmann took a wicket with the first ball of the match. He then took another wicket with the second ball. In his next over, he took a 3rd! Oman, 3 wickets down for just 10 runs in the 3rd over were looking like an early curtain was imminent. Oman did enjoy some cameo appearances however with Maqsood, Kail and Ahmed scoring 22. 34 and 11. Oman went into the interval with a score of 109 and some serious bowling to do.
So far Namibia’s plan seemed to be working out. They are probably a level above Oman in the world game and 109 isn’t a big score, easily achieved by the experience of their top order batters. So as Micheal van Lingen took to his mark, wearing that proud eagle upon his chest, I imagine he felt confident. At the other end, Oman’s opening bowler Bilal Khan charged in with the second ball of the innings and BANG! Lingen, clean bowled! Just like in the first act, Namibia’s opening batter was out for no score! The rest of NAM’s innings was like watching Oman’s in reverse. Davin and Frylinck played their parts with 24 and 45 respectively but, with Mehran khan picking up 3 wickets, Namibia scrambled their way to the end of the innings with a score of, you guessed it, 109!
The match was tied………the drama!
In case of a tied match in this World Cup we go to a super over. A super over is where each team gets 1 more over of batting and the team with the most runs having not lost both of their available wickets win……..simples!
Now at this point I should declare an interest, Namibia are my African team (I have a team on every continent). Also, Former South Africa and now Namibia bowling allrounder David Wiese is one of my favourite cricketers. See below me fanboying him at Headingley last year.
Wiese, the man I call the Namibian pirate, had already had a good day, taking 3 wickets earlier in the game. He opted to bat the super over and smashed 13 of just 4 balls. Along side his Captain Gerhard Erasmus Namibia posted a strong 21 runs. Anything can happen in a super over, 4 good strokes and Oman could easily have won the game, but, the spotlight shone again on David Wiese. Taking the ball he restricted Oman to 10 runs and picked up a 4th wicket in the process………legend.
Namibia picked up the points and got their World Cup campaign off to a winning start and with proof that not every game needs to be a run fest to be a classic……….but let’s hope for a few runs fests as well!
Match 2 today was between Sri Lanka and South Africa and it was less a lower scoring thriller but more a low scoring frustrater……….for their respective fans at least!
The first game to be played at the brand new Nassau County International cricket stadium and no one knew how this pitch was going to play……….for Sri Lanka it looked less like a fairy tale in the New York and more like a nightmare! Winning the toss they broke the mould of the tournament so far and chose to bat. Things didn’t go well. Sri Lanka’s top five were dismissed for a dismal 33 runs, including 2 ducks (duck means being dismissed for a score of zero!). At this point Sri Lanka’s veteran allrounder Angelo Mathews stepped to the crease. They say an old lion is at its most dangerous when it senses the end, make to doubt, Sri Lanker needed Mathews to roar today! As it was Angelo managed a not entirely convincing run a ball 16 while the rest of his team capitulated around him, being bowled out for a disappointing 77.
South Africa, will have felt confident in knocking off such a low target, but, you always get the impression that SA might come across all………South Africary……
The Proteas are something of an enigma. Sat flowering at the very top of world cricket, they are a unbelievable score setting team. If they win the toss and go into bat, their host of huge hitters will bludgeon the cricket ball all over the ground scoring 200, 210, 220, 230? With scores so large even the best nations in world cricket struggle to better them. However, they don’t seem to like to chase. Sri Lanka will have known that which is why they opted to bat first and put SA under pressure. SA also seem to struggle against low scores, perhaps they can only bat one way, hard! Sometimes though, the situation calls for a little finesse. The third factor is that they seem to struggle against the smaller nations. India, England, Australia, bring it on! Netherlands……..well the less said the better. So, daft as it seems, SA chasing a low score against Sri Lanka…….not recipe for success for the men in green and gold.
SA seem to know themselves though, when it was their turn to bat they didn’t come out like the stabbed rats we’ve all become used to. With a tiny target to chase and all the time in the world to do it SA’s Quinton de Kock and Reeza Hendricks took to the crease looking more like division 2 county championship players then T20 internationals. As the match ground on however the familiar story of the proteas seemed to be inking itself into the pages of history once more. As wickets fell and the slow run rate continued it was looking more and more like Sri Lanka were going to do the unthinkable and burgle a victory. Unfortunately for you fans of a fairytale ending, with such a low total needed SA dug deep into their colossal batting line up and got over the line at the first World Cup match ever to be played in New York, a bit of history there that these teams will keep forever!
So South Africa are off the mark and we wish them well as we do all the teams, expect Australia……..obviously!
It’s a triple header tomorrow, doing the grave yard shift is Afghanistan and Uganda at 1.30am. The last game of the day sees Netherlands face off against Nepal at 4.30pm. Sandwiched in between them at 3.30 England kick off their defence of the T20 championship against Scotland…….god help me!
Thank you all as ever for reading and please spread the word to your friends, family, colleagues and enemies!
Speak again tomorrow.
All the best,
Nick
All The Cricket 
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