It seems that at present South Africa can defeat any team in the world in T20 cricket, but as soon as Namibia comes in front, its hands and legs swell. This has been seen in the ongoing three-nation T20 series in Namibia, where after facing a crushing defeat in the first match against Namibia, South Africa seemed to be losing for the second time. However, this time somehow South Africa won by 11 runs. This is South Africa’s first win against Namibia in 3 T20 matches.
The result of this match played in Windhoek on Friday 4 September was to decide whether South Africa would face Namibia or Zimbabwe in the final. Incidentally, this decision also had to be taken by South Africa itself. To reach the final, Namibia once again needed to defeat South Africa, while if they lost, Zimbabwe would have got the ticket. This happened in the end and Namibia could not score a hat-trick of wins against South Africa.
Luan scored his first century
The reason for this was South Africa’s opening pair, whose bats yielded 189 runs. Luan Dripitorius scored his first century in T20 International and scored 101 runs. He was out for 94 runs in the last match against Zimbabwe. Whereas his opening partner Connor Esterhuizen played a brilliant inning of 88 runs. On the strength of these two, South Africa made a strong score of 228 runs after losing 4 wickets in 20 overs, which was also the highest score of this series.
Namibia lost after coming close to victory
After such a score, it seemed that South Africa would win easily and Namibia, which had defeated it on the previous two occasions, would not be able to reach this big score. But the way in which Namibia’s innings progressed, it increased the heartbeats of South Africa. The opening pair of Lauren Steenkamp and Yann Freelink made a blazing start and added 119 runs in 11 overs.
After Freelink’s dismissal, Namibia’s hopes suffered a major blow when Steenkamp had to retire hurt. Even after this, Namibia remained in the competition. But this time the bat of team captain Gerhard Erasmus betrayed him. Erasmus stayed till the end but could score only 30 runs in 26 balls. His slow innings took a heavy toll on the team, which could reach only 217 runs.