Namibia completes series with victory over Ireland
Namibia A completed a 2-1 series victory over Ireland Wolves following their wicket win in the third and final game of the Castle Light T20 Series at Wanderers Cricket Club yesterday.
Namibia won the toss and sent the visitors to bat first, restricting them to 165 runs for five wickets (165/5) in their 20 overs.
Ireland’s Stephen Thomas Doheny scored 74 runs from 54 balls not out while Jeremy Lloyd Lawlor chipped in with 45 runs.
Namibia’s right-arm slow bowler Pikky Helao Ya France took two wickets for 27 runs in four overs.
The host’s inexperienced opening batsmen once again failed to live up to expectations with the two openers Lohan Louwrens (six runs) and Jan ‘JC’ Balt (nine) failing to hit double figures for the third game consecutively.
Senior players Nicol Loftie-Eaton (74 not out from 46 balls) and JJ Smit (63 not out from 31 balls) steered Namibia to victory with eight wickets to spare after 16.5 overs.
Both Loftie-Eaton and Smit knocked two fours and six-sixes to lead Namibia to a convincing victory in front of a partisan crowd.
Ireland bowlers were their worst enemies as they conceded 15 no-balls compared to Namibia’s nine.
Namibia won the first match by two runs via the Duckworth-Lewis-Stern method (DLS) in a raininterrupted first match on Monday, before Ireland levelled the series via a 32run victory in the second game on Wednesday at the same venue. LoftieEaton was named man of the match.
Captain Smit said the team played a lot better compared to the previous matches. “We started well with the ball, kept it tight in the middle and finished off well. Nicol (Loftie-Eaton) and I just stuck together with the bat and said let us take it to the end,” he said in the post-match interview.
Attention now turns to the five-50 over games, which will start on Tuesday, 29 March until 05 April at the same venue.
Born and bred in the garden town of Okahandja to Festus and Maria Meroro-Tjihero, the energetic, sports-crazy lightskinned Tjihero siblings were all destined for greatness since their formative years. After all, their old man Festus was a formidable defender for Nau-Aib outfit Zebras FC, the precursor to Black Beauty Chiefs (BBC), back in the day.
History reveals that secondeldest son Albert, then aged 19, was the first player to captain the Blacks Invitational 11 in the historic exhibition match between the all-whites and blacks 11 in 1975. He would go on to represent his motherland in the prestigious South Africa Inter-Provincial Currie Cup tournament with great aplomb.
Albert also won several accolades with Katutura glamour football club African Stars, including the historic cup double, the national league title/ and the coveted Mainstay Cup in the maiden season of mixed-race football in apartheid South West Africa (SWA) in 1977 during a flawless illustrious football career that stretched close to two solid decades.
Younger brothers Jamanuka and Bimbo were also great footies in their own right. The latter successfully skippered the national senior football team, the Brave Warriors, during their golden era that saw the Namibian amateurs defy all odds stacked against them to qualify for the prestigious biannual Africa Cup of Nations (Afcon) finals in Burkina Faso in 1998.
Elder brother Gebhardt ‘Hoffman’ was a no-nonsense rugby player during his time at the revered St Joseph’s Secondary School (Dobra), playing for the school’s senior rugby 15.
Another younger sibling, Alex, although he was completely different from his sport-crazy brothers, played a bit of school football and tennis, but eventually joined the fray in the later stages, albeit in a somewhat awkward fashion when he tied the knot with Namibia’s leading hoopsrattler Jatjinda ‘Toetsie’ KambatukuTjihero.
Younger sisters Pahee and Laura Kapena were noted netballers during their prime. The latter represented her native land in several highprofile august gatherings, including the quadrennial All Africa Games in Harare, Zimbabwe, and the World Netball Championship in Birmingham, England.
Elder sisters Agatha (late) and
Erica also made their mark on the netball courts with distinction during their school days.
The old adage that an apple doesn’t fall too far away from the tree seems to have played her hand big-time within the Tjihero clan. Erica’s daughter Maggy Mengo, arguably the country’s finest female hockey player of all time, is having no intention of letting the family legacy down.
Maggy has been manufacturing breathtaking performances on the hockey field. The cat-footed beauty singlehandedly steered the Namibian senior women’s hockey team to World Cup qualification at the expense of big sister South Africa, on two different occasions.
A chip off the old block, the multi-talented Maggy was also a noted netballer and sprinter on the athletics track, representing Namibia at junior level before turning her full attention to hockey. She would go on to play professional indoor hockey in The Netherlands for leading club Kampong. It is certainly no mean feat.
And who says there’s no life after sport?
Off the field, the ambitious Tjihero siblings are all well-respected exemplary citizens in various fields. Laura is the current chief executive officer of the Namibia Institute of Pathology (NIP). Elder sister Pahee is an accomplished veteran lecturer at the University of Namibia (Unam).
As it stands, Albert ranks amongst the most successful indigenous Namibian Brahman cattle-breeding commercial farmers in the country, while younger brother Bimbo, a part-time commercial farmer, heads the marketing department of the Namibian Broadcasting Corporation (NBC). Both Juppie (Alex) and Jamanuka are also commercial farmers, with business interests in retail outlets.
Maggy is the proud holder of an honours degree in finance and accounting from the University of Amsterdam, Holland, courtesy of her astonishing display on the hockey fields that propelled her to land a lucrative scholarship. She currently holds the plum position of head of marketing and branding at Standard Bank Namibia.