A rejuvenated Namibia take on South Africa in a three-match 50-over One Day International series starting at the FNB Namibia Cricket Ground today.
Despite finishing last in the T20 series against SA and Zimbabwe, Namibia were competitive throughout and with a bit of luck could well have made the final.
They started off with an 18-run upset win against South Africa on 28 August and then three days later nearly beat Zimbabwe in a match that was only decided on the final ball, as Namibia fell five runs short of the target. In their second match against Zimbabwe they lost by five wickets, but in their return against SA they produced a great run chase before falling 11 runs short of SA's massive total of 228/4.
In that final match they showed they can chase down big totals, while their solid top order batting, disciplined bowling, tight fielding and never-say-die attitude kept them competitive throughout against their higher ranked opponents.
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Dewald Brevis and Duan Jansen of South Africa were the top batter and bowler of the series, with 226 runs and 11 wickets respectively, but Namibian players also fared well in the individual rankings.
Jan Frylinck finished third amongst the batters with 162 runs and Gerhard Erasmus fourth with 149, while Ruben Trumpelmann came fifth amongst the bowlers with six wickets, followed by Erasmus and JJ Smit with five each.
Namibia coach Craig Williams said he was proud of his team.
"I'm quite proud of the guys - there were certain moments in the game where we really competed and really pushed a test nation to the limits but there were one or two moments where we just lost concentration a bit and against really good teams you lose the match there," he said.
"But over the whole series against we were competing in every single game, and we can only get better from experiences like this so I'm actually quite proud of what we managed to achieve. Obviously we wanted to win but the learnings that we got are also very valuable," he added.
Regarding the 50-over series Williams said they are in good form and aiming to play good cricket.
"We've got a game plan in 50-over cricket which has been working quite well for us and we've had some good results recently in the Cricket World Cup League Two. South Africa is obviously a different beast, they are a really good team, so we will just try to tick our boxes and stick to our game plan - you can't control the results, but if we play good cricket, you never know what will happen," he said.
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South Africa, meanwhile, have strengthened their squad with the call up of top order batter Matthew Breetzke and pace bowler Corbin Bosch, who replace the injured Lhuan-dre Pretorius and Andile Simelane respectively.
In February last year Breetzke set a new world record for an ODI debut when he scored 150 runs for South Africa against New Zealand, while he has a great average of 64.18 after 12 ODIs to date.
Bosch has forced his way into the SA test side over the past year with his bowling exploits, but he also broke a world record as a batter when he scored 81 on debut against Pakistan in December 2024 - the highest score on debut for a number nine batter.
Breetzke and Bosch have both also been called up to the SA squad for their upcoming series against Australia, but the only other members of their Namibian contingent that have been called up for Australia are Bjorn Fortuin, Tony de Zorzi and Kwena Maphaka.
The Namibian squad will remain the same with Louren Steenkamp, Jan Frylinck, Gerhard Erasmus, Nicol Loftie-Eaton, Zane Green and Alex Volschenk leading the batting department, while Trumpelmann, Jack Brassell, Max Heingo, JJ Smit, and the spinners Erasmus, JC Balt and Bernard Scholtz will lead the bowling attack.
The three-match ODI series kicks off today, starting at 09h30, while the next two encounters are on Friday and Sunday.
