Namibian teams shine at SA cricket festival

Cricket Namibia’s (CN) participation at the EJCCA Carnival City Cricket Festival in Benoni (South Africa) with three junior teams a fortnight ago has been a success. Their U13’s, U15’s and U17’s faced teams from Easterns, Zimbabwe and Easterns Development, achieving some exceptional results in the process.

The best results came from the U15’s. Led by their skipper Shaun Fouche, they convincingly beat Easterns U15’s and U14’s by 8 and 7 wickets respectively in their opening day of T20 matches.

The organizers then felt that the team was too strong for the age group and had them play a 45 over match the following day against Easterns U16, whereby the Namibian boys put up a brave fight against Easterns right until the end. Keeping in mind that seven of the players in the Namibian squad are still U14, they managed to give the Eastern squad a big scare and ended up losing in the final overs by 4 wickets.

The following day they were put up against Zimbabwe’s U16 team and bowled them out for a mere 184 and were looking to pull off a very surprising and convincing win. However, thanks to some brilliant up front bowling, Namibia lost early wickets and were in some serious trouble as the game wore on. But thanks to a great knock from number 9 batsman, Erich Wittmann, who scored 42 off 38 balls and number 10, Donovan Zealand, putting on 21*, the Namibian boys were in with a shout, needing just 30 to win off the last 30 balls.

Unfortunately the tail-enders weren’t able to take the win home and the Namibian youngsters ended up losing by 30 runs. Still, a great result, considering it was against a country considered to be much stronger and an age group above them.

Wanting to end on a high note, Namibia had a final T20 against the Easterns U15’s. Batting first, Shaun Fouche posted a fantastic 72 runs, leading the team to a strong 152 in 20 overs. In response Easterns only managed 129/8, losing by 23 runs.

Namibia’s U15 team was awarded the team of the festival, with Nicol Loftie-Eaton receiving the award of the most promising bowler and Shaun Fouche the most promising batsman of the festival.

On paper the U17’s did not perform as Cricket Namibia would have liked to, however, the opposition was extremely strong. The matches against direct age group teams was a very even affair with Namibia beating the Eastern U16’s (T20), while losing on the last ball versus the same teams U17’s (T20). They then beat Eastern U17’s (40 overs). The loss against the Colts later in the tournament was to be expected as they were the Eastern’s U19 Coke week side.

In other action, the U13’s didn’t get off to the promised start. Although their fielding was outstanding and considered the best in the tournament, the Namibian youngster couldn’t achieve the necessary results. Later on, however, their overall play improved and they still managed to give their opponents a good run for their money.