Namibia all-rounder Jan Frylinck reckoned his side has punched above their weight by defeating Sri Lanka in the T20 World Cup 2022 opener on Sunday in Geelong.
Namibia stunned the world, kicking off the tournament with a mighty upset by thrashing the reigning Asia Cup 2022 champions by a massive margin of 55 runs at the Simonds Stadium, leaving even the Man of the Match Jan Frylinck “speechless”.
Namibia made their first mark at the global event in last year’s T20 World Cup in the UAE when they qualified for the Super 12. This year as well, they have made a strong start in the preliminary qualifying round by demolishing the 2014 T20 World champs.
Jan Frylinck said the team perhaps wouldn’t have imagined taking down a Full Member nation at the T20 World Cup 2022.
“I’m a little bit speechless at the moment. What we’ve just achieved is above what we thought we could do and I’m very just excited at this point in time,” Frylinck said while speaking to the broadcaster after the match.
After being asked to bat first, Namibia lost early wickets and were under the pump at 93/6 in the 15th over when JJ Smit joined hands with Frylinck in the middle. The all-rounder pair powered Namibia to 163 with a valiant partnership of 69 runs from 33 balls – Frylinck finished with 44 runs off 28 balls and Smit 31* off 16.
Speaking about the partnership, Frylinck said: “JJ just came in and took the pressure off me by hitting a couple of boundaries, and then myself and JJ just got us to a competitive total and the bowlers were just great after that.”
The Namibian bowlers were on the money from the first over and took regular wickets, never letting Sri Lanka get away with a partnership. Frylinck, Wiese, Bernard Scholtz and Ben Shikongo all snapped two wickets each and bowled Sri Lanka out for 108.
“[The surface] it was a little bit two-faced, a little hard to get away. Other than that it stayed rather true. [With the bowling] just stuck to our plans, hit good lengths and let them make the mistakes,” Frylinck explained.
With the size of this victory – 55 runs – Namibia have made their route to Super 12 round easier, and a victory in one of the next two games will do it for them. For Sri Lanka, though, it has become a tough task to reach the next stage of the tournament, but they are still favourites to go through.
