David Wiese smashes 66 against Netherlands to keep Namibia's Super 12 hopes alive
This was Namibia's highest-successful chase in T20Is and also their maiden win at a World Cup
There were several candidates to choose from in this fixture but this unique award has to go to Wiese. He turned Namibia's innings around with a vintage performance that involved clearing the rope five times, all in the 'V.' Wiese's first shot in anger came when he charged Roelof van der Merwe and hit the ball over his head for six, which put Namibia on 68 for 3 at the halfway stage, needing 97 runs off the last 10 overs. Namibia scored 52 runs off the next four overs, and Wiese was responsible for 37 of those. He brought up his first fifty for Namibia off 29 balls with a six over cover point and brought their required run-rate down to just over six runs an over in the last three overs, when they needed 19 runs. Wiese only faced one ball in the final over, and Smit hit the winning runs, but he set the victory up and finished on an unbeaten 66 off 40 balls. Wiese also took the Player of the Match award.
Pace off the ball is likely to become the phrase of the tournament, and if you need a visual, look no further than the first two wickets of the Dutch innings. Jan Frylinck delivered a slow-motion bouncer to Stephan Myburgh, who tried to upper-cut him over point, but was earlier on the stroke than he would have liked and lobbed it to Stephan Baard at point. Two overs later, Wiese bowled a short, wide, and slow delivery that van der Merwe tried to cut but ended up slashing high to Bernard Scholtz at third man.
Max O'Dowd brought up a second successive half-century at this tournament, this one laced with leg-side boundaries, but it was not without its fair share of luck. He survived four times against some sloppy Namibian fielding, which could have seen his innings end much earlier. O'Dowd could have been run out in the 11th, when he was on 38, and he pushed a Ruben Trumpelmann delivery to cover and set off for a single, but almost immediately realised it was the wrong decision. He gave up about three-quarters of the way down but the throw missed the stumps. Then, when he was on 46, he hit the ball to extra cover, took off and again realised he was too hasty. O'Dowd was ready to run back to the dug-out but the throw was inaccurate. He brought up his fifty six balls later with an inside-out drive over the covers.
The fielding remained messy when Netherlands began their defence. In the third over, Baard punched a ball into the covers and took a single which appeared completely out of the question. van der Merwe rushed his throw that would have run Baard out at the striker's end and he escaped an early exit. Two overs later, Namibia's mini-collapse began, when Zane Green dragged an attempted pull onto his stumps off Frank Klaasen. They went on to lose 3 for 18, with Baard the third of those wickets when he missed a flick and was bowled by the Dutch captain Pieter Seelar. But then came the 93-run stand between Erasmus and Wiese to seize the advantage for Namibia once more, and that was that.
Firdose Moonda is ESPNcricinfo's South Africa correspondent