Southern Kings win Desert Ice T20 trophy 

The Southern Kings Run Whisperers became the Nedbank Desert Ice T20 champions after beating Unam Zebras by eight wickets in Sunday’s final.

In a high-scoring match, the Zebras posted a challenging total of 217, but the Kings, led by some brilliant batting by an injured Nyasha ‘Nash’ Nyashadzaishe, comfortably reached the target with 11 balls to spare.

After being sent in to bat, the Unam Zebras lost the early wicket of Vernon Morkel for two runs, but Muhammad Waqas and Tonde Musakanda revived their fortunes with a great century partnership, in a stand of 105 runs off only 51 balls.

Karl Birkenstock got the breakthrough for the Kings, dismissing both batsmen within three balls of each other. Waqas was caught behind by Asad Abbas for 46 off 28 balls (6×4, 1×6), while Musakanda was also caught by Abbas for 57 off only 28 balls (2×4, 6×6).

The rest of the Zebras’ top order batsmen kept the momentum going with some solid contributions.

Muhammad Kashif scored 39 not out, Shafiek Abduraghman 25 and Kalimullah Khan 23 not out as they reached 216 for four wickets off their 20 overs.

Birkenstock was the Kings’ best bowler with two wickets for 38 runs.

In reply, the Kings got off to a great start as Nyashadzaishe and Adriaan Coetzee shared an opening wicket stand of 99 runs off only 44 balls.

Especially Nyashadzaishe’s innings were remarkable since he couldn’t run after tearing his hamstring, but displaying some unorthodox batting shots he smashed 63 runs off only 27 balls, which included six fours and four sixes.

Coetzee soon followed for 32, and with the total at 111 for two wickets, it was still anyone’s game. However, Wessel Myburgh and Birkenstock took the Kings to victory with an unbeaten century partnership.

Myburgh scored 63 not out off 36 balls (6×4, 4×6) and Birkenstock 46 not out off 26 balls (4×5, 2×6) as they reached the target with 11 balls remaining.

After the match, Gernot de Klerk of Nedbank Namibia said they were proud to play a role in the development of cricket in Namibia.

“I’d like to thank everyone who has been involved and for allowing us to be a part of this. There’s a lot that needs to come together to host an event of this nature – the umpires, the fans and more importantly the players. One understands that synergies are important and if each one doesn’t bring his or her end, we won’t be able to have this renaissance of cricket in Namibia,” he said.

“It’s wonderful to see what our national team has been able to achieve but it starts at events of this nature, when you are able to have talent against talent, hone that talent and then ultimately when we do go to the Caribbean, the United States of America, Pakistan or the United Arab Emirates, then we will be able to hold our own,” he added.

Man of the match Nyashadzaishe, meanwhile, showed his innovative side when he said he learnt a lot of his batting skills from the youngsters that he coaches.

“I coach a lot of youngsters and they give me a lot of ideas on how to score. At the Run Whisperers, we do funny things, for instance Sunet brings eggs to the practice and sometimes we play with tennis balls, so I think I learnt it from the little kids that I coach,” he said.