The wait is over as the FNB T20 Trinations series gets underway this afternoon with a highly anticipated match between the FNB Namibia Eagles and the South African Protea at the FNB Namibia Cricket Grounds.
Last year, Namibia made history with a four-wicket win against their southern African neighbours at the inauguration of the stadium and despite not picking their strongest side, the South Africans will be raring to go and out to take revenge.
Several of their first choice players have not been selected but they still have an array of exciting talent including prodigious batters like Dewald Brevis, Lhuan-Dre Pretorius, Tony de Zorzi, and the Hermann brothers, Rubin and Jordan, as well as an exciting pace attack with the likes of Kwena Maphaka, Lutho Sipamla, Nqobani Mokena, Eathan Bosch and Duan Jansen.
Namibia national coach Craig Williams for one is under no illusions about the task ahead.
“They definitely have a good side and a lot of their guys have played a lot of T20 cricket around the world. It’s quite a young team and we are expecting them to come full blast, because they will want to prove themselves and they’ve got their head coach Shukri (Conrad) here with the whole South African coaching staff.
“You cant take the youngsters for granted, they are here to prove a point and they will be keen to fix their place in the South African set-up, so it’s going to be very exciting,” he says.
Williams says they are well prepared and for the series which also includes Zimbabwe.
“We’ve prepared well – we had two good weeks of preparations and we also had an inter-squad game this week so we will be ready for action on Friday.
“The inter-squad game went well – we mixed the teams up a bit to give everybody a chance and we don’t have any injuries so it will be the normal Namibian team playing and there shouldn’t be any big surprises. The guys are in good form and we’ve just come off a good tour to The Netherlands as well,” he adds.
In the inter-squad game on Tuesday, a Namibian A team beat a B team by seven wickets.
The B team was in a spot of bother when they lost Junior Taanyanda (one) and Zacheo Janse van Vuuren (six) early on, and when Malan Kruger was dismissed for 24, they were three down for 48 runs after seven overs.
The middle-order, however, revived the innings with some solid contributions, with Zane Green scoring 41, Alexander Volschenk 21 and JC Balt 18, while Ruben Trumpelmann blasted 37 not out off only 16 balls, as they reached 164/6 off their 20 overs.
In reply the A team got off to a great start as Jan Frylinck and Louren Steenkamp shared an opening partnership of 84 off 7.2 overs, and they never looked back, as they comfortably reached the target with three overs to spare.
Frylinck led the way with 60 runs off 27 balls (10×4, 2×6), while Steenkamp scored 55 not out, Gerhard Erasmus 23 and Nicol Loftie-Eaton 21.
Williams says they will go all out to win the match.
“Obviously our aim is to win the match. We’ve prepared as best we can and we’ve got no injuries, so we are at full strength. On the day anything can happen – I told the guys you can’t control the result, but as long as we play our best cricket you never know, so we’ll see which way it goes.”
A big crowd is expected for the match and Williams says they hope to provide a memorable spectacle.
“We were a bit worried about the turnout because there was a public holiday on Wednesday and I think a lot of people have gone away for school weeks, but the tickets are nice and cheap so we are definitely hoping that a lot of people will come out. I’m sure there will be a big crowd and we are excited to play in front of our home fans, so we are just looking forward to playing good cricket,” he says.
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