Namibia fight back to beat Scotland

A 99-run partnership for the eighth wicket between Jan Nicol Loftie-Eaton and Pikky Ya France saw the Eagles of Namibia defeat Scotland by three wickets in their Cricket World Cup League 2 clash late Monday.

The Scots went into their third match of the tour to Namibia having already beaten the hosts and Nepal. They were looking to make it three from three, but could only post 208 all out batting first in Windhoek and then found the two aforementioned batters in their way during the second half of proceedings.

Namibia ended up on 210-7 with six overs of their 50 to go after a cracking match, which ebbed and flowed throughout the day.

The Scots amassed a total of 208 through their encouraging attack, restricting Namibia to 28 runs in their opening 10 overs and then 82 for five at the 20-over stage.

But the Eagles of Namibia picked up the pace to reach 210 for seven with 36 balls to spare.

However, there was an early blow when former skipper Kyle Coetzer was dismissed for leg before wicket (lbw) by Ruben Trumpelmann, who went on to take four wickets.

Brandon McMullen (56) and opener George Munsey (51) were the key men with the bat for Scotland, but nobody else claimed more than 20 runs in difficult conditions as wicket-keeper Zane Green caught five of the visiting batters, with the tourists bowled out in the final over. McMullen continued to impress by bowling out Namibia’s opening batters for a total of 10 runs and then catching skipper Gerhard Erasmus, while Mark Watt took three wickets for 28 runs.

But Chris Sole was among the bowlers who failed to land a wicket from his 10 overs as Jan Nicol Loftie-Eaton (67) and Pikky Ya France (52) took the home side past their target with an unbeaten partnership of 99 runs.

Scotland remain top of the league and have five games in hand on second-placed Oman, but Namibia closed their deficit on the leaders to nine points with two games less played.