Daily Times

ABU DHABI: Scotland’s unbeaten run at this year’s World Cup came to a crashing halt against Afghanistan on Monday. Several dubious records were bagged on the way as they lost nine wickets to Mujeeb Ur Rahman and Rashid Khan, a signal that quality spin is an Achilles heel for this team. Their first shot at leaving that performance firmly in the past will come on Wednesday against Namibia, the only other Associate team remaining in the World Cup. With three teams from the subcontinent in their group, and New Zealand to boot, both Scotland and Namibia will have earmarked this fixture as the place to pick up two sure points. For Namibia, it is the first match of this stage, and a chance to get started with a win before any thoughts of upsetting the bigger teams later on. For Scotland, it’s a little more urgent than that. They were the most dominant side in the first round and starting with losses to the two teams they would consider closest to them in stature will sour what has already been a historic campaign. The teams have already played each other twice this month before the World Cup began, and Scotland lost both those games. They’ll be looking to put a stop to that.

Gerhard Erasmus has already sealed his status as a Namibia great, as the captain who has led them to what will now be back-to-back T20 World Cups. His fifty against Ireland brought them into this stage of the tournament, and was described by Player-of-the-Match David Wiese as the more important of the two knocks that helped seal qualification for them. He’s been out cheaply against Scotland the last two times they’ve met, and will be looking to set the straight when it matters the most. Erasmus is Namibia’s top-scorer in this format and will be expected to set the tone on Wednesday

George Munsey has been looking like a man in form without yet making a big score. At the top of the order, Munsey has shown shades of his destructive best, and will be looking to go deeper in the innings as Scotland look to put behind their batting failure from earlier in the week. Munsey bats in what is the best phase in these conditions and Namibia will consider him one of the main threats. Neither side is likely to change their XIs.

Squads:

Namibia: (possible) 1 Zane Green (wk), 2 Craig Williams, 3 Gerhard Erasmus (capt), 4 David Wiese, 5 JJ Smit, 6 Jan Frylinck, 7 Jan Nicol Loftie-Eaton, 8 Pikky Ya France/Stephen Baard, 9 Ruben Trumpelmann, 10 Michael van Lingen, 11 Bernard Scholtz.

Scotland: (possible) 1 Kyle Coetzer (capt), 2 George Munsey, 3 Calum MacLeod, 4 Richie Berrington, 5 Matthew Cross (wk), 6 Michael Leask, 7 Chris Greaves, 8 Mark Watt, 9 Josh Davey, 10 Safyaan Sharif, 11 Brad Wheal.