The Indian cricket team bowed out of the T20 World Cup by defeating Namibia by a comprehensive margin of 9 wickets. Virat Kohli’s men showed no signs of relaxation despite having their campaign ended by a New Zealand victory against Afghanistan on Sunday 7 November. They stuck to their process and stayed on top of the game at every possible phase making sure that there are no surprises left in this edition of the World Cup.
After restricting Namibia to a total of 132 runs, the Indian batting unit, courtesy of Rohit Sharma, KL Rahul and Suryakumar Yadav put pedal to the metal and brought up the total with 28 balls remaining.
KL Rahul and Rohit Sharma scored fluent 50s after surviving early scares in the innings. After the departure of Sharma, Suryakumar Yadav took over the reins and was at his absolute best, displaying his breathtaking range of strokes. He scored 25 off 19 balls.
Earlier in the innings, the Indian spinners weaved their magic to puncture any momentum that the Namibia batting order could have had. Aided by the cross-breeze from the Pavillion end, Ravichandran Ashwin and Ravindra Jadeja routed the Namibian batting order picking three wickets between them.
While Ashwin beat the players in flight, Jadeja used his length and pace to good measure outfoxing the opposition players. Jasprit Bumrah was among the wickets as well, picking up key wickets of Micheal van Lingen and David Weise at two ends of the innings. Weise top scored for Namibia with 26 runs off 25 balls before chipping a full length slower ball from Bumrah to Rohit Sharma standing inside the cricle.
There was a silver lining for Namibia despite the loss in the tournament as they qualified for the 2022 T20 World Cup scheduled in Australia. Captain Gerhard Erasmus acknowledged the same and stated that they have hopefully inspired the next level of cricketers in Namibia to take the sport forward.
Ravindra Jadeja was adjudged the man of the match for his stellar spell of 4-0-16-3.
The game marked the end of Virat Kohli’s captaincy in the T20I format with the legendary right hander finishing off with a 64 percent win record in his tenure. Reflecting on the same, Kohli stated that it has been ‘6-7 years of intense cricket’ and it is a relief to have relinquished the captaincy given the ‘toll it has taken’ out of him.
He added that as long as he plays for India, his passion will never fade and he will forever give his 120% for the team.
India will now be heading home and hopfeully for a much needed break after staying in bio-bubbles for over six months. They start their next assignment against New Zealand on 17 November in a three match T20I series.