Canada U19 won the battle of the emerging nations as they managed to post a 4-wickets victory over Namibia U19 to stay alive in the hunt for a place in the Super League Quarter-finals but now have to beat England U19 for the spot.
Canada’s Akash Gill had a memorable outing as he picked up 4/43 with the ball and played a crucial innings of 52 off 67 deliveries in helping his team reach their target and achieve their first win in the 2018 edition of the U19 World Cup.
Namibia U19 batted first and were bowled out for 193 in 46 overs. All top 5 batsmen got starts but failed to convert them into bigger knocks. Lohan Louwrens (38 off 52), Eben van Wyk (32 off 40) & Erich van Mollendorf (30 off 40) did the bulk of the scoring at the top of the order.
Namibia were well placed at 151/3 at one stage but lost their final 7 wickets adding further 42 runs to the total. Rommel Shazad (2/27), Rishiv Joshi (2/28) & Aran Pathmanathan (2/38) provided good support to Akash for Canada.
Canada’s chase by spearheaded by Arslan Khan (72 off 89) & Akash’s 110 runs partnership for the 3rd wicket. After Gill’s departure, Arslan added further 52 runs for the 4th wicket with Kevin Singh, who remained unbeaten till the end scoring 50 runs off 53 deliveries. Namibia managed to pick up 6 Canadian wickets in the process but could not apply more pressure to take the game close.
Petrus Burger (2/29) & Shaun Fouche (2/34) picked up a couple of wickets for the Namibians. Namibia finish their group matches without a win and now will be playing for the Plate Championship in the next round of the tournament.
