Namibia claim WCL2 title in historic 1st home ODI

DUBAI: The final day of the final World Cricket League Division 2, much like the final days of most of 31 such tournaments that had preceded it over the 12-year history of the competition, was something of an anti-climax.

With the decisive group phase done and dusted, there was only pride on the line as the third-fourth play-off at Affies Park between the USA and Papua New Guinea and the final across the road at Wanderers, where Oman and hosts Namibia vied to become the final WCL Division 2 Champions took place. Over at United, Canada and Hong Kong faced off for the wooden spoon in the only match that would decide anything, namely which group each would land in for the coming CWC Challenge League.

There was one distinction, however, between this Division 2 and the ones that preceded it. The final and third place play-off were full ODIs, the first to be played in Namibia, the first the USA and Namibia had played in well over a decade, and for Oman the first in the Sultanate's history. Namibia's last ODI had come at the 2003 World Cup, where they went winless in their six matches, finishing with a 64-run defeat to the Netherlands.

They broke that streak in emphatic style on Saturday (April 27) in front of a home crowd as they trounced Oman by 145 runs to claim the Division 2 title in the 5th attempt, a prize they will hold in perpetuity, this being the concluding tournament in the final WCL cycle.

It was a slightly re-jigged Namibian batting order that lined up after skipper Gerhard Erasmus had won the toss and elected to bat first. Karl Birkenstock was returning to the side and promoted to open alongside Stephen Baard, with the early going tough for the hosts as Fayyaz Butt remove Baard after a 37-run opening partnership and the hosts struggled for fluency.

The run-rate hovered around 3 an over for much of the Namibian innings, as the left-right spin combo of Zeeshan Maqsood and Aaqib Ilyas kept a lid on the scoring, and regular wickets kept the scoring in check as Erasmus and Craig Williams fell cheaply.