Eagles gain experience in Punjab series defeat 

National cricket coach Pierre de Bruyn expressed satisfaction with his squad’s recent performances against the visiting Indian state side, Punjab Cricket Association, despite losing the series 4-1. 

Punjab dominated from the start, posting some big victories at first, but Namibia’s performances steadily improved and culminated in a 44-run victory in their final match on Wednesday. 

“Punjab are a quality side with some excellent spin bowlers – they are so skilful, they dont bowl a bad ball and make the batters work for their runs, and if you look at the series averages you will see that they dominated the bowling,” De Bruyn said. 

“I wanted to give our young players more exposure which I did and most of them put their hands up at some stage. I was more focussed on getting back into the 50-over game after the T20 World Cup, so we had good exposure and gained a lot of experience,” he added.

In their final match on Wednesday, the Eagles posted their highest total of the series – 228 for nine wickets, after being sent in to bat. 

JP Kotze(32) and Lohan Louwrens (36) gave them a strong start with a 73-run first wicket partnership, and although Michael van Lingen was dismissed for a golden duck, the rest of the top order weighed in with some solid contributions.

Gerhard Erasmus scored 25, Jan Frylinck 16, Zane Green 23 and JJ Smit 55 off 52 balls (1×4, 4×6) as Namibia set Punjab a competitive victory target. 

In reply, Punjab got off to a steady start, but the Eagles’ bowlers gradually gained the upper hand, led by an irrepressible performance by seam bowler Shaun Fouche, who took five wickets for 39 runs off 10 overs, while Bernard Scholtz (3/34) and Jan Frylinck (2/35) also got amongst the wickets. 

Nehal Wadhera top-scored for Punjab with 58 off 46 balls (5×4,3×6), but he received little support before they were all out for 184. 

JP Kotze was the best batter of the series with 181 runs at an average of 36,20, followed by Pukhraj Mann of Punjab (134 runs, average 44,67) and Simran Singh of Punjab (129 runs, average of 43,00). 

Mayank Markande of Punjab was the best bowler of the series with 11 wickets at an average of 6,64, followed by team mates Harpreet Brar (seven wickets, average 21,86) and Inder Singh (six wickets, average 9,67). 

De Bruyn said he was especially pleased with Kotze’s form. 

“JP was the top batter of the series and I was very pleased for him after all the hard work that he has put in over the past year, while we also had some good individual performances from some of the young up-and-coming players,” he said.

“I was also pleased that we improved with each game and the second last game could have gone either way. So Im happy with the improvement and also that we will be taking that winning momentum into the World Cup League 2 series against Scotland and Nepal,” he added. 

The team leaves for Scotland tomorrow for the series which forms part of the qualifying series for the 2027 Cricket World Cup. 

Namibia’s squad, and especially its bowling department has taken a knock due to injuries, according to De Bruyn.

“We have three injuries to key players – Ruben Trumpelmann will be out for a few months due to a knee injury, while Dylan Leicher is also out with a knee injury. Tangeni Lungameni has a niggling groin injury, he’s still in the squad, but will miss the first one or two matches,” he said. 

“Thats too bad, but it will give the next players in line opprtunities to step up and stake their claim. We have drafted Junior Kariata into the squad, Handre Klazinga is back after passing a late fitness test, and Hanro Badenhorst has also been called up,” he said.

The Namibian squad is as follows:

Gerhard Erasmus (captain), Lohan Louwrens, Malan Kruger, JC Balt, Michael van Lingen, Jan Frylinck, JJ Smit, JP Kotze, Zane Green, Handre Klazinga, Bernard Scholtz, Tangeni Lungameni, Ben Shikongo, Jack Brassell, Junior Kariata, Hanro Badenhorst.