Namibia vs Netherlands Prediction: Namibia has improved by leaps and bounds

The T20 World Cup is a way to find out the four squads that will make it to the Super 12s. So two out of the four teams will make it to the next round of the World Cup where the top eight teams are waiting for the lower-ranked teams to join the carnival. There have been some huge upsets already and that’s why the Initial Round itself has now developed huge intrigue. In this game of the First Round, Namibia will tackle the threat of the Netherlands and will wish to build upon their initial gain.

Namibia surprised everyone once again as they defeated heavyweights, Sri Lanka, by 55 runs. Batting first, they stacked up 167 runs for eight wickets and their middle order showed up big time. Batters from the third spot onwards made up for an initial hiccup as the team lost three wickets for 35 runs. Jan Nicol, Baard, Erasmus, Frylinch, and JJ Smit accounted for 141 runs out of the 167 where Jan scored 44 of 28 and JJ Smit accumulated 31 runs in 16 balls to finish things on a high note.

But the bowling against the highly-rated Sri Lankan batting was even more impressive. After now having a big outing with the bat, David turned up with two wickets for 16 runs. Sri Lanka lost four wickets for 40 runs and the bleeding didn’t stop there, they couldn’t muster up anything special and except for skipper Dhanush Shanaka’s 29 runs off 23 balls, the rest of the unit only saw one more contribution in the excess of 20.

Namibian bowlers kept the lid throughout the game and except for Gerhard Erasmus who bowled just one over and eight runs, the rest of the bowling unit bowled below the run-rate of 7.50 with three bowlers conceding below 5.50.

The Netherlands were tested by the UAE bowling but still won three wickets with just one bowl to go. They did a great job of limiting UAE to just 112 and except for Mohammad Waseem who scored 41 runs, the rest of the batting unit couldn’t see one player scoring 20 runs. Fred Klassen stole the show, giving just 13 runs in four overs for a wicket whereas Bas de Leede was the pick of bowlers, stacking three wickets for just 19 runs. The team picked up the last six wickets for just 20 runs.

Batting-wise Netherlands lost their first wicket early but Max’O Dowd struck some hefty blows. However, he couldn’t press for long and lost his wicket at 41 but not before he had scored 23 runs. Things didn’t really improve from there and no other batter reached 20 points. The required rate was mostly around 6-7 in the last parts of the innings and Scott Edwards kept his nerve to bring the team over the line, scoring 16 runs in 19 balls as the team got the target with just a delivery to spare.

Batters: Jan Frylinck, David Wiese, Stephan Baard, Max O’Dowd, Bas de Leede, Tom Copper.

Bowlers: Fred Klassen, Bas de Leede, Tim Pringle, Jan Frylinck, Ben Shikogo, Bernard Scholtz.

Namibia made a big statement in the last game after beating the Group's favorite Sri Lanka and once again, they have proven to be resilient in the early stages. The Netherlands has an impressive unit but the trouble is that they can be erratic many times. Bowling-wise, both teams did well in their last well and after stalling Sri Lanka completely, Namibians will be on the high. Although this seems like a close tussle, I’d expect Namibians to ride the momentum front the win against Lankans and win here.