Namibia lost their second Super 12 game against Afghanistan by 62 runs on Sunday afternoon at the Sheikh Zayed Stadium in Abu Dhabi at the ongoing Twenty20 (T20) World Cup.

Afghanistan won the toss and elected to bat first, posting 160 runs for the loss of five wickets (150/5) in their 20 overs.

Namibia failed to mount any serious run chase as their partnerships failed to reach the 20 run mark while Afghanistan pace bowlers produced another lethal display to restrict Namibia to 98/9 in their 20 overs.

David Wiese was Namibia’s top scorer with 26 runs from 30 balls while Jan Nicol Loftie-Eaton contributed 14 runs off 16 balls.

Ruben Trumpelmann took two wickets for 34 runs in his four overs while Loftie-Eaton gave up just 21 runs as he took two wickets.

Gerhard Erasmus, the Namibian captain said that they knew it was going to be a level up from the previous game as Afghanistan are a Test-playing nation and have quality bowling.

“We had to change our plans a bit, but I believe that our batters could not stay for too long on the crease and we did give away a few more runs in the Powerplay as well, 160 was a good total and they just had too much quality in attack and all their pacers bowled well,” he said.

He added that despite the defeat, he feels Namibia should be competing with the best cricket playing nations in the world.

It was Afghanistan’s third match of the tournament having beaten Scotland by 130 runs before losing heavily against Pakistan on Friday.

Afghanistan’s Naveen-ul-Haq was named man of the match.

Namibia has two points from two games after beating Scotland in the opening game of their Super 12 campaign.

Source: The Namibian Press Agency