Namibia have played 79 men\u2019s ODIs against 14 teams, five of them ICC full members. But they have never been engaged in the format against their southeast neighbours, with whom they share a border of 967 kilometres. That will change in Windhoek on Wednesday.<\/p>\n
South Africa will be heavily favoured to win the three-match series, even though their squad doesn\u2019t include Temba Bavuma, Quinton de Kok, Ryan Rickelton, Aiden Markram, Tristan Stubbs, David Miller, Marco Jansen, Keshav Maharaj or Lungi Ngidi \u2014 who were all named on Wednesday to play three home ODIs against Australia from September 24 to 30.<\/p>\n
The Windhoek excursion will thus be seen as tinkering and tooling and tightening the nuts and bolts \u2014 and perhaps lining up a few potential spares \u2014 for the World Cup in South Africa, Zimbabwe and Namibia in October and November next year.<\/p>\n
Much is being made in South Africa, in CSA circles and elsewhere, about the Proteas getting it together well enough to finally win that trophy. This series, although it lacks the glamour and draw of a rubber against the Aussies, is firmly part of that effort.<\/p>\n
Shukri Conrad told a press conference on Monday that push would get closer to shove when South Africa play England in three home ODIs in January: \u201cThat will probably be a shadow squad for the World Cup, or closer to it.\u201d The six games against Namibia and Australia were about \u201cmaking sure everybody gets a fair crack\u201d.<\/p>\n
Other people count sheep if they can\u2019t sleep. Maybe Conrad counts cricketers: \u201cWe\u2019ve got three or four guys vying for two spots at the top in Quinny, Ricks, Aiden and Tony [de Zorzi]. Then again, Ricks and Tony might give us options slightly lower down.It gives me a few things to play around with.\u201d<\/p>\n
The goal for the Namibians will be to keep winning to stay on track for a place at the World Cup. It\u2019s one thing to host part of the tournament, quite another to do so despite not playing in it.<\/p>\n
To stay in the running to have a dog in the fight in the global event, Namibia will need to finish among the top four teams in CWC League 2. Currently they are fifth with four matches left to play. A top-four finish would earn a place in the World Cup qualifier in February and March next year. A solid performance against the South Africans will be good preparation for their upcoming crunch clashes against the United States and the United Arab Emirates.<\/p>\n
It\u2019s a long and winding road to the World Cup for teams like Namibia. Not so for South Africa, who \u2014 like Zimbabwe \u2014 qualify by dint of being hosts who are ICC full members. Considering not a lot separates Namibia from Zimbabwe, that smacks of unfairness.<\/p>\n
But cricket has always been a game of the great and the good, of haves and have-nots, of the mighty and the minnows. The series starting in Windhoek on Wednesday captures those differences perfectly.<\/p>\n
When:Wednesday, September 9, 2026; Friday, September 11, 2026; Sunday, September 13, 2026; 9.30am local and SA\/7.30am GMT\/1pm IST<\/p>\n
Where: Namibia Cricket Ground, Windhoek<\/p>\n
What to expect: Five men\u2019s ODIs have been played at this ground, all of them in April this year. Considering that was after last summer and that we are still a few weeks away from warmer weather, conditions could be similar. The 268\/7 Namibia scored against Oman and the Omanis\u2019 reply of 274\/7 are the highest totals here. Despite that, two centuries, two scores in the 80s, one in the 70s and five mere half-centuries have been made. There has been one five-wicket haul and two four-fors, all taken by fast bowlers. One of those five ODIs was washed out, but the series shouldn\u2019t be interrupted by the weather.<\/p>\n
Team news:<\/p>\n
Namibia: Michael van Lingen is freshly unretired, but Gerhard Erasmus told a press conference on Tuesday that \u201cit looks like he won’t be available for tomorrow\u2019s game\u201d. Here\u2019s hoping that\u2019s not the case.<\/p>\n
Possible XI: Louren Steenkamp, Jan Frylinck, Michael van Lingen, Gerhard Erasmus (capt), Jan Nicol Loftie-Eaton, JJ Smit, Zane Green, Ruben Trumpelmann, Bernard Scholtz, Jack Brassell, Max Heingo.<\/p>\n
South Africa: Lhuan-dr\u00e9 Pretorius and Andile Simelane have been ruled out with inner thigh and abdominal injuries. They have been replaced by Matthew Breetzke and Corbin Bosch. Temba Bavuma, the appointed ODI captain, is at home preparing for the start of the domestic first-class season, which starts on Thursday.<\/p>\n
Possible XI: Tony de Zorzi, Jordan Hermann, Connor Esterhuizen, Dewald Brevis, Matthew Breetzke, Corbin Bosch, Jason Smith, Duan Jansen, Bjorn Fortuin (capt), Kwena Maphaka, Nqobani Mokoena.<\/p>\n
What they said:<\/p>\n
\u201cI hope we have the same result as our first T20 against them, but I can\u2019t promise that.\u201d \u2014 Gerhard Erasmus harks back to the shining day last October when Namibia beat South Africa by four wickets in a last-ball thriller.<\/p>\n
\u201cWe expect the game to be high quality.We expect their skill to come through, not only because it\u2019s a longer format of the game but because these are their own conditions.\u201d – Bjorn Fortuin does his marketing bit by talking up the opposition.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Namibia have played 79 men\u2019s ODIs against 14 teams, five of them ICC full members. But they have…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":884739,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[564],"tags":[10968,64,63,740,438129,85],"class_list":["post-884738","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-cricket","tag-10968","tag-au","tag-australia","tag-cricket","tag-south-africa-tour-of-namibia","tag-sports"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/884738","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=884738"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/884738\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/884739"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=884738"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=884738"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=884738"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}