Match Preview – Scotland vs Namibia, ICC Men’s T20 World Cup 2021/22, 21st Match, Group 2

Big picture

Scotland’s unbeaten run at this year’s World Cup came to a crashing halt against Afghanistan on Monday. Several dubious records were bagged on the way as they lost nine wickets to Mujeeb Ur Rahman and Rashid Khan, a signal that quality spin is an Achilles heel for this team.

Their first shot at leaving that performance firmly in the past will come on Wednesday against Namibia, the only other Associate team remaining in the World Cup. With three teams from the subcontinent in their group, and New Zealand to boot, both Scotland and Namibia will have earmarked this fixture as the place to pick up two sure points.

For Namibia, it is the first match of this stage, and a chance to get started with a win before any thoughts of upsetting the bigger teams later on. For Scotland, it’s a little more urgent than that. They were the most dominant side in the first round and starting with losses to the two teams they would consider closest to them in stature will sour what has already been a historic campaign.

The teams have already played each other twice this month before the World Cup began, and have won one game each.*

Form guide

Namibia WWLWW (last five completed matches, most recent first)

Scotland LWWWL

In the spotlight

Team news

Neither side is likely to change their XIs.

Namibia: (possible) 1 Zane Green (wk), 2 Craig Williams, 3 Gerhard Erasmus (capt), 4 David Wiese, 5 JJ Smit, 6 Jan Frylinck, 7 Jan Nicol Loftie-Eaton, 8 Pikky Ya France/Stephen Baard, 9 Ruben Trumpelmann, 10 Michael van Lingen, 11 Bernard Scholtz

Scotland: (possible) 1 Kyle Coetzer (capt), 2 George Munsey, 3 Calum MacLeod, 4 Richie Berrington, 5 Matthew Cross (wk), 6 Michael Leask, 7 Chris Greaves, 8 Mark Watt, 9 Josh Davey, 10 Safyaan Sharif, 11 Brad Wheal

Pitch and conditions

The forecast has Abu Dhabi’s temperature hovering about 30 degree celsius during the start of this evening fixture, among the coolest evenings in the tournament so far. It’s a pitch that’s shown assistance for fast bowling as well recently, but evening fixtures have generally taken the pitch out of the equation at this venue, with dew being a much bigger factor. Four of the last five wins have been for the team batting second. It is, however, among the friendlier venues for bowlers in this format due to the long boundaries.

Stats and trivia

Quotes

“Financially we weren’t where we wanted to be, but as a team we weren’t really performing. And to think of tournaments like qualifying tournaments, we tend to just fall away at the end. We knew we really had to turn around, and it’s really been an effort to do that. It had to be some great role play within Cricket Namibia – from the coaching staff to the board members to the administration itself – that have followed to buy into one vision and go some way. And now we sort of I guess at the peak and reaping those rewards which is great. And hopefully continue going upwards.”

Gerhard Erasmus reflects on Namibia’s journey before a big day

“Namibia are a very good team. I actually said before the Cup started that I expected them to go through. I’m kind of pleased that they did. They’ve got everything covered – they’ve got experience, they’ve got a really good fielding unit and very tidy bowling. So we know enough about them, we’ve played against them three or four times in the last, maybe three years now. There’s no real surprises but at the same time we do expect to go out there and win.”

Scotland’s Matthew Cross on their equation with Namibia

*This article previously stated that Scotland have lost both games this month to Namibia. That was an error.