The Eagles produced one of the shocks of the tournament at the opening match of the 2022 Twenty-Twenty (T20) World Cup match when they stunned Sri Lanka by 55 runs in Geelong, Australia on Sunday.
Freshly crowned Asian champions Sri Lanka, who are ranked eighth in the world T20 rankings, won the toss and elected to field first, with the Eagles (ranked 14th) posting 163 runs for seven wickets (163/7) in their allocated 20 overs.
Namibia got off to a poor start as they lost openers Michael van Lingen and Divan la Cock early in their innings before the duo of Jan Frylinck and Johannes Smit forged a 70-run stand to set a challenging 164-run target for Sri Lanka.
Frylinck scored 44 from 28 while Smit hit 31 from 16 not out. Jan Loftie-Eaton (20), Stephen Baard (26) and captain Gerard Erasmus (20) also contributed with crucial runs.
The bowlers then took over, with Ben Shikongo taking two wickets for a maiden in the fourth over, which proved to be the turning point of the game.
He removed Pathum Nissanka and Danushka Gunathilaka off consecutive deliveries, forcing the Sri Lankan batters to start playing mistimed shots and getting caught.
He was aided by David Wiese, Bernard Scholtz and Frylinck who collected two wickets apiece while Smit chipped in with one.
Sri Lanka were bundled out for 108 runs with 6 balls to spare.
Frylinck was named man of the match and paid tribute to his teammates, saying what they achieved is above what they thought they could do.
Captain Erasmus said it was a special and incredible journey for the team from last year which was a special experience topped up with a great win.
“Opening day has really been special for us and we want to kick it off from here and qualify for the next stage, where there is a bigger picture as well,” he said.
He paid tribute to Pierre De Bruyne, who he said has turned this whole ship around by installing a winning culture despite the limited resources in Namibia in terms of player pools.
The Eagles play The Netherlands on Tuesday, 18 October before facing United Arab Emirates on Thursday in a bid to qualify for the Super 12 Competition.
Source: The Namibian Press Agency
