NOVEMBER 8, 2021
Brief Scorecard: India 136 for 1 (Rohit 56, Rahul 54*) beat Namibia 132 for 8 (Wiese 26, Jadeja 3-16, Ashwin 3-20) by nine wickets
DUBAI: India beat Namibia by nine wickets in the final game for captain and coach to finish things on a high in the ICC T20 World Cup Group 2 match in Dubai. India never looked out of chase where they needed 133 runs. Although it seemed that Namibia will give India some fight, but the pedestrian bowling wasn’t good enough to make the Men in Blue sweat. Add fifties from Rohit Sharma and KL Rahul, and the scorecard justifies itself. All credit must go to Rohit who took the attack to the opposition and played his shots despite not timing the ball on most occasions.
He raced to a fifty with a superb strike rate of 156! Even as he played the aggressor, KL Rahul had no qualms being a second fiddle. He brought up his fifty a later—in the final over and saw Suryakumar Yadav experimenting with reverse scoops and inside outs. Only disappointment was Kohli holding himself back once again in the tournament.
Fans thought they will see captain Kohli one final time when Rohit departed, but it didn’t happen. Meanwhile KL Rahul looked on song, he slammed his third fifty of the tournament and reached his fifty in the final over of the match, looking mush better than top scorer and fellow opener Rohit Sharma.
Earlier Ravichandran Ashwin (3/20) and Ravindra Jadeja (3/16) shined in India restricting Namibia to 132/8 in their 20 overs of the final Super 12 match of the ICC Men’s T20 World Cup at the Dubai International Stadium here on Monday.
At one point, Namibia was in danger of being bowled out for a low score as Ashwin and Jadeja shared six wickets between themselves. But David Wiese, along with the lower order, helped Namibia bat out their whole quota of overs.
Put into batting first, Namibia had a brisk start with 31 runs in four overs. Jasprit Bumrah made the first breakthrough for India as Michael van Lingen mistimed a bouncer to mid-off. In the next over, Jadeja had Craig Williams stumped for a four-ball duck. Jadeja returned in the eighth over to trap Stephan Baard lbw while going for a sweep. Baard went for the DRS but it showed ball crashing towards the top of middle and leg stump.
