NamibiaSport

Centuries by Craig Williams and Raymond van Schoor put Namibia in a strong position at the end of the first day of their CSA Challenge match against Easterns on Thursday. Namibia reached 367 all out in their first innings while Easterns were at 55/0 at stumps.

Namibia got off to a bad start after Ewald Steenkamp (4) and Gerhard Rudolph (0) were dismissed early, but Williams joined Van Schoor to put Namibia in charge.

Both batsmen batted cautiously at the beginning, with especially Van Schoor being subjected to some bouncers, one of which hit him on his hand. He received treatment on the field and managed to continue batting after a while.

The two batsmen gradually took control on a batsmen’s wicket as Easterns’ bowlers started toiling in the sun. Especially Williams upped the tempo, hitting Easterns’ atack to all corners of the field before he was eventually out for 130 off 155 balls, which included 13 fours and 4 sixes.

Williams and Van Schoor put on a third wicket partnership of 222 runs to put Namibia in control at 239/3.

Bjorn Kotze soon followed for a duck but Van Schoor batted on before he was dismissed for 127 off 224 balls, which included three sixes and 14 fours.
Further down the order, Nicolaas Scholtz added 65 off 93 balls before Namibia declared at 367/9 after 85 overs.

Marchant de Lange was Easterns’ most successful bowler, taking 4 wickets for 57 runs off 16 overs, while Mario Saliwa took 3/53 off 11 overs.

Easterns got off to a positive start and at stumps they were on 55/0 after 17 overs with Israel Hlengani on 31 and Ruan du Plessis on 21.

The scorecard of Namibia’s innings is attached.