Coach Douglas Brown’s advice to his UAE boys about “600 actions” in a match inspired Rohan Mustafa and his wards to glory as they denied host’s Namibia the chance to advance from WCL Division 2 to WCQ by defeating them in a close encounter by 19 runs.
In a “do-or-die” match between the two sides much similar to what was going around in a short distance between Nepal and Canada, UAE’s middle-order piled up impressive runs as they made 247/6 in their 50 overs and then managed to thwart a late challenge from Namibian middle-order bats, Williams and Erasmus, to bowl them out for 228 in the 50th over to secure their place in ICC World Cup Qualifiers.
A crucial 71 runs partnership for the 3rd wicket between Ghulam Shabber (44 off 71) and Rameez Shahzad (33 off 88) stabilized UAE’s innings after they lost both their openers with score reading at 22/2 in the 8th over. What followed was simply sensational from Shaiman Anwar and Mohammad Unman as they forged a 120 runs partnership for the 5th wicket as UAE recovered from 97/4 to 217 in the 48th over before Unman got out to JJ Smit after making a well deserved 59 off only 57 deliveries.
Shaiman was the last wicket to fall for UAE after amassing 77 runs from only 59 deliveries as UAE reached 247/6. JJ Smit (3/57) finished as the best bowler on display for Namibia.
Namibia’s response started on a bad note as they lost their first three wickets with the score reaching 48 runs in the 13th over. Namibia U-19 star Lohan Louwrens (43 off 67) steadied the ship along with Craig Williams but got out in a wrong time with Namibia pegged down to 98/4 in the 27th over. Jan Frylinck too didn’t last long as Rohan Mustafa scalped his wicket among his 3 strikes for the match.
Ahmed Raza got the important breakthrough as he got Williams (54 off 79) caught off his own bowling that ended a 47 runs partnership for the 6th wicket between him and Gerhard Erasmus. Erasmus went onto get a half-century but perished for 58 runs off 63 deliveries in the 48th over with Namibia at 220/8 needing another 27 runs off remaining 14 deliveries.
Amir Hayat got the wicket of Bernard Scholtz to reduce them to 226/9 in the 49th over with Sarel Burger still at the crease with the last ditched hopes for Namibia to pull off an unlikely win.
However, it wasn’t to be as his counterpart, Rohan Mustafa had Burger (21 off 21) caught off his bowling in the final over to run wild celebrations in the middle as UAE managed to stay abreast with the cream of Emerging nations in the ICC World Cup Qualifiers.
