Namibia’s cricket men’s national development side, ‘the Eagles’, defeated the Lahore Qalandars by five runs to win the first of two 50 over matches at the Wanderers Cricket Club in the capital on Wednesday.

The in-form Eagles won the toss and elected to bat, before posting 262 runs for the loss of eight wickets (262/8) in 50 overs.

Vice-captain and man of the match Johannes Smit top scored with 49 runs from 39 balls, before claiming two wickets for 22 runs in six overs.

Captain Merwe Erasmus chipped in with 43 runs from 51 balls, before he was clean bowled by Salman Fayyaz, while opener Lo-Handre Louwrens, number six Jan Nicol Loftie-Eaton and number three Steven Baard knocked 35, 31 and 31 runs respectively, as Namibia put up a competitive score.

In response, Qalandars got off to an impressive start as openers Muhammad Naeem and Mirza Tahir Baig scored 20 and 60 runs respectively.

However, Namibia’s bowlers soon tightened their bowling, forcing the Qalandars batsmen to take unnecessary risks before restricting them to 257/8 to claim victory.

Fast pace bowler Ruben Trumpelmann starred with the ball as he claimed three wickets for 48 runs in his 10 overs, while Scholtz took two wickets for 48 runs in the same number of overs as well.

Also chipping in with a wicket was Erasmus, who bowled out in-form batter Shane Dadswell to lead the Eagles to a five-run victory.

The two teams will meet in the second and final game of the bilateral series on Friday at the same venue, with the host hoping to continue with their fine form and claim a series victory.

Source: The Namibian Press Agency