Ireland and the Netherlands have secured qualifying for the play-offs in the ICC Men’s World T20 qualifier after scoring convincing victories over Nigeria and Bermuda with eight goals and 92 runs.
Craig Young’s four for 13, alongside Mark Adair’s two for ten, meant that Nigeria could not start against the bat against Ireland and could only score a meager 66 for nine out of 20 overs.
The chase was a breeze for Ireland, with Kevin O’Brien 32 and Paul Stirling again making a quick start at 11, finishing 67 in just 6.1 overs as they now lead the group with eight points B sit. In second place in Oman, however, remains a group game.
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In Group A, the Bermuda Islands were not able to compete against the Netherlands as, with 123 runs, they reached the highest number of teams ever in the Netherlands, 206 against three, for the first time in the Netherlands.
Ben Cooper and Max O’Dowd both hit 58 and Colin Ackermann slammed a late 43rd before Paul van Meekeren scored three goals for 26, as Bermuda could only score 114 for nine goals in response. Kamau Leverock scored 31 with the highest score.
Namibia prevailed in the last game of the day against Singapore with 87 runs in third place in Group A.
Ireland vs Nigeria
Ireland secured the qualifiers for the play-offs thanks to the best T20I figures in his career for Craig Young (four for 13) and Mark Adair (two for ten), with whom Nigeria was limited from its 20 overs to only 66 for nine and the Irish pursued the goal with ease.
Gareth Delany and Adair scored early goals when Nigeria made only 33 for four out of the top ten overs before Young joined the party as he ripped out the middle and bottom orders to set up a canter to the finish.
Kevin O’Brien (32) and Paul Stirling (11) attacked in power play, as only they knew what it was like before Gareth Delany and Adair approached Ireland with only two wickets in just six overs and a ball.
Irish captain Gary Wilson said: “We did our job we had to do, we are at the head of the group and have taken some of the pressure back on Oman to make sure they get results, and hopefully they will do that “. I will be enough to secure second place.
“It’s two games yesterday and today that we’re likely to win, but we still need to do something to be able to do that, and I thought we were very good with the ball both days.”
Nigeria captain Ademola Onikoyi said: “I felt like we could have done more runs than the 66. We need to work on our psychology, as it may have been a bit scary because it’s a test nation.
“We can’t think of them as bowling dollies and they have pretty good ranges and a lot of stock balls.”
Netherlands vs Bermuda
With Ben Cooper’s Twin 58 and Max O’Dowd’s in a 123-run opening record in the Netherlands, the Netherlands scored the competition’s highest score by coming out of their 20 overs on 206 to overpower Bermuda and creating a play- to win off their own place.
Both men encountered more than one run-a-ball with 12 boundaries between them, as Bermuda could not contain the flow of runs before Colin Ackermann hit an 18-ball 43 to finish the innings and 200 and beyond to their highest level ever arrive team overall.
Bermuda’s response never really got going and lost three doors in the first six overs, including the big scalp of Delray Rawlins for 16, when he looked like a car driver, and Paul van Meekeren’s middle pace compensated for the damage when he hit three Pforten demanded for 26, while Pieter Seelaar (two for ten) and Roelef van der Merwe (two for 23) claimed two each.
Dutch captain Pieter Seelaar said: “We wanted to make sure we won the game first, and we did that by scoring a big point. Obviously, the Bermudas wanted to come out and play a few shots, and today we have shown that you can still keep up with the net running rate.
“We’ve played a lot against Scotland in recent times, but how we beat them is how we played our cricket here.
“Today we made a good start with the racket we have not experienced in this tournament so I think that will be crucial, but Scotland is a very good team.”
Bermuda captain Rodney Trott said, “I think we’ve focused on beating in the seven games we’ve built. It should be our greatest strength, but we were a little disappointed in our starts.
“I think our biggest concern is commitment. Commitment and respect are very important, so hopefully, we can keep the same people together on our return and move forward. “
Namibia vs Singapore
Namibia captain Gerhard Erasmus has inspired his team to an 87-run victory over Singapore and moved into third place in Group A.
Erasmus scored 72 from just 46 balls, while Namibia scored 191 for 8 of 20 overs.
The Namibian bowlers then scored an early goal and scored a 3-11 win for Singapore in the second half. Jan Frylinck finished the game 4-21 when Singapore was defeated 104-104.
Erasmus, the captain of Namibia, said: “It was very gratifying to win today and the result puts us in the top three now, and we’ll have to wait and see what happens.
What pleased me as a leader was that I secured the victory yesterday, and that can sometimes be difficult. The batting is in a good place and we look calm and confident overall and the bowling works well.
“We need to be able to cope with the pressure in the final stages of the tournament and that will be the key for us.”
Singapore captain Amjad Mahboob said: “They started very well but then we fought back and put them in a position where we thought we could come back but they fought very well – especially the captain and that has taken the game from us.
“The catch was disappointing because it was a very important game and the three dropped catches did not go in our favor and the coaches need to work on it.
“We will take away many facilities, we do not have a big stadium like this in Singapore and we played very well. We will work on the mistakes we made in this tournament. “
Group A Standings
Group B Standings
