JOURNEY OF NAMIBIA TO SUPER 12
India’s Super 12 opponents will be Afghanistan, Namibia, New Zealand, Pakistan, and Scotland, with the Men in Blue’s first game against Pakistan Sunday.Namibia has taken a giant leap and is set to feature amongst the big boys at the T20 World Cup in the UAE.
Namibia became the final team to qualify for the Super 12 stage of the 2021 ICC Men’s T20 World Cup, after recording an eight-wicket win over Ireland, a full member cricketing nation ranked seven places above it.This was not only Namibia’s first ever win at a major ICC tournament but also the first time they and Scotland qualified for the main draw of the T20 World Cup.
Namibia head coach Pierre De Bruyn was “ecstatic” for his players after they secured a place in the main draw of the Twenty20 World Cup, hailing it as a “dream come true”.”Looking forward to this next stage, it’s ultimately a dream that’s come true for these players,” De Bruyn said.
Namibia goes from part-timers to successive World Cups. Where their head coach said that they we’re ecstatic, he have got to remind himself that what just happened out there but it happened to a really good group of people.The African nation of just two and a half million people reached the Super 12 stage with an eight-wicket victory over Ireland, who crash out of the tournament.And he said “We’re not an organisation with the luxury of a lot of resources around us. I’ve got 18 players to pick from in my national squad and I know what they’ve put in the last three years and what happened out there today.“I suppose it sounds like a cliche saying the hard work has paid off but it really did and I’m ecstatic for the boys.”
Namibia aspires to go toe to toe with the best in the game, but de Bruyn knows there is still work to be done.”To develop as an associate, having your own facility with world-class resources and full-time staff is non-negotiable. If you want to be sustainable on the world stage, you need these things. It is called the foundation where you go and develop youngsters and bring them through the system, ensuring your youngsters have education both ways – stay in the system. Investing in players to make the pool bigger is a must.”