Namibia stun Scotland; Netherlands go on top with third straight win

Mohammad Abdullah, Staff Reporter

A spirited Namibia showed remarkable resurgence as they stunned Scotland by 24 runs to notch up their first win in three games at the Wt20 qualifiers on Monday.

Riding on a late cameo of JJ Smit, Namibia scored a competitive 159/6 in their allotted before restricting Scotland to 135/8.

Smit smashed a fiery 43 off 22 balls with the help of one four and four sixes after CG Williams and MG Erasmus shared a 51 runs stand for the fourth wicket to anchor the innings.

Namibia got off to a faltering start and lost three wickets in quick succession. They were reeling at 46/3 before the duo took the charge and knuckled down to build the innings.

They took the score to 95-4 in 13.4 overs before Smit made his way on the ground. He started cutting loose from the word go and taking the score to 147/5 before being dismissed.

Scotland were never in chase as they lost early wickets. But Calum Macleod and Richie Berrington tried to revive the innings with a gritty third partnership of 46 runs. But after the departure of the duo, Scotland kept on losing the wickets on the regular intervals and could manage to muster only 135 for the loss of eight wickets in 20 overs.

Meanwhile, Jersey defeated the hosts UAE by 35 runs. After posting a total of 147 runs, Jersey restricted the UAE to 112.

Rohan Mustafa and Chirag Suri gave UAE a blazing start but after their dismissals, the hosts failed to get the momentum going and kept on losing wickets at regular intervals to wind up at 112 in 19.2 overs.

Elsewhere, the Netherlands extended their winning streak for their third straight victory against minnows Singapore to go on the top of the table.

Chasing a paltry total of 104, Netherlands overhauled the target for the loss of five wickets with 21 balls remaining. Singapore did try to make some in-roads through their bowlers but a stubborn Max O’ Dowd and RN ten Doeschate anchored the faltering innings to put the doubts to rest.

With the third victory from as many games, Netherlands have gone to the of their group with six points.