The T20 World Cup continues with another double header of action on Tuesday and we return to Group A beginning with the clash between the two winners from Sunday as Namibia take on the Netherlands in Geelong.
These two teams head into battle knowing that the winner will go to four points and will have more than one foot in the next stage. The loser isn’t out but would be left needing to win their last game to go through so while they can play with freedom here, both teams will be eager to win.
Namibia
There are already signs that Namibia are going to emulate what they achieved in the previous World Cup. I think it is fair to say that the first objective for Namibia, as I daresay it is for all the teams in this opening section, is to get out of the group and guarantee their participation in the next World Cup and they gave themselves a huge chance of doing just that with their victory over Sri Lanka in their first match. Cricket isn’t played on paper as we know but that win was their tougher match of the group on the paper.
It wasn’t just the win over the top dogs in the in the section which served them well on Sunday, it was the margin of it. If qualification or top spot in this group comes down to the net run rate then Namibia gave theirs a shot in the arm but perhaps just as importantly stuck a massive dent in the Sri Lankans. Namibia played very smart in the first game. They batted sensibly and then put Sri Lanka under pressure with the ball and watched them crumble.
Netherlands
Given that they bombed out in awful style in the World Cup last year, the Netherlands will be delighted to get over the line and get a win under their belt against the UAE in their first match on Sunday. There is no hiding the fact that there was little that was convincing about that win but given how much the victory meant to them we can certainly forgive them for having a bit of a wobble at the finishing line. They will hope with the win under their belt they can relax and let their proper form come out.
There is no doubt that the Netherlands will need to play a lot better here than they did in their first game. I don’t think Namibia will bat as naively as UAE did and obviously they need to put up a lot more runs than they managed in that match too. They are not under quite as much pressure in this match but their final game is against Sri Lanka so they could do with coming out on top here and taking another huge step towards securing their qualification before that contest.
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Team News
Namibia were so convincing in their opening win that there is no reason for them to make any changes. That means Ruben Trumpelmann might need to wait for his chance in the side unless there is a late injury.
The Netherlands also picked the team many expected them to and with most of their bowlers contributing the goods against UAE they have no need to change anything. They do have Brandon Glover waiting in the wings should they want to make a change.
Betting
There are three bets that I like the look of for this match. Two of them are player performances with the first one I am happy to go with being Jan Frylinck, the player of the match for Namibia in their opening game. That was because of a really good all-round performance where he made 44 from 28 with the bat and then took 2/26 when he had the ball in hand. He has a performance line of 29.5 in this match so he effectively covered that with bat and ball in game one. He has covered it with the ball in both T20 internationals he has played against the Netherlands as well with 3/25 in the first one and 2/36 in the second. I love 3D cricketers under 40 points for the over and Frylinck ticks that box here.
I also like the performance of Bas de Leede, the Dutch player who has such an exciting future if not present. He has a higher line than Frylinck but one of the reasons for that is because he bats at three in this Netherlands side. He took three wickets against UAE in the opening game but his batting is probably his strength. In the last three months he has scored 66 and 53* in T20 matches against New Zealand and 89 in an ODI against Pakistan and 56 against England. He is a good batter who should be able to take a chunk out of this 36.5 performance line with the bat. He has three wickets in both matches on this trip so he can do some damage with the ball too and I expect him to cover his performance here.
The last bet I’ll take is David Wiese to be the top scorer for Namibia in this match. These two met at this stage of the tournament a year ago and Wiese top scored in that match. He is clearly better than he showed in the opening game. You only have to look back to The Hundred to see how clean and how big he hits the ball and if he comes up against some ordinary death bowling like he did a year ago he will punish it. The Namibia top order looked a bit nervy against Sri Lanka in the opening game and if that doesn’t change someone down the order will top score. There is no reason why that can’t be Wiese.
Tips
Back J.Frylinck’s Performance – Over 29.5pts for a 3/10 stake at 1.83 with Bet365
Back B.de Leede’s Performance – Over 36.5pts for a 3/10 stake at 1.83 with Bet365
Back D.Wiese Top Namibia Batter for a 1/10 stake at 8.00 with Bet365
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