Namibia captain Craig Williams slammed his second hundred in the final of the ICC Intercontinental Shield to lead his team to a six-wicket win over UAE on the fourth and final day at the ICC Global Cricket Academy Oval in Dubai on Sunday.
Williams smashed an unbeaten 113 off 95 balls as Namibia made light work of UAE’s target of 187 and achieved victory in 39.4 overs.
Earlier, the UAE resuming on its overnight total of 403 for eight were bowled out for 427 with top-order batsman Saqib Ali remaining unbeaten on 160. His knock had helped UAE to an overall lead of 186.
Namibia began shakily in its chase for 187, the visitors slipped to 27 for two, losing Raymond van Schoor and Sarel Burger to Amjad Javed. But skipper Williams teamed up well with Ewald Steenkamp to steer Namibia out of trouble. The duo put on 57 for the third wicket before Steenkamp became Javed’s third victim.
Thereafter Williams was joined by Louis Burger, together this fourth wicket stand yielded 77 runs. Playing in his final match for Namibia, Louis Burger struck a six and three boundaries in his 47-ball 20 which gave their innings some momentum. UAE skipper Khurram Khan bowled himself and claimed Louis Burger’s wicket.
But by then the match had slipped out of UAE’s grasp as Williams led from the front in style to help his side pocket the ICC Intercontinental Shield. Williams scored his eighth first-class hundred off 89 balls, a shade slower than the first innings when he achieved the feat off 85 balls. He hit 15 boundaries and two sixes in his match-winning knock.
UAE captain Khan was disappointed with the result but proud of his team.
“It has a lot to do with the first hour of the first innings on the first day. It seemed a lot with the new ball, as you saw on the second day as well,” said Khan on their dismissal for 79.
“That put us on the backfoot, but credit to our guys who did wonderfully well to bring us back into the contest. Saqib Ali, Swapnil Patil, Naeemuddin, Arshad Ali batted well to bring us back into the game. I think we fell short by 40-45 runs otherwise it would have been a good game,” he said.
The UAE skipper also paid tribute to his team’s fighting qualities. “We have played four day cricket for quite long. The key is you can’t just give up; the bowlers too bowled their hearts out today even though there was nothing in the wicket. Especially, Amjad Javed got three wickets out of a very batting friendly track,” said Khan.
Williams was presented his man of the match award by ICC GCA Head Coach Dayle Hadlee and was an emotional man after he received the I Shield trophy from ICC Board Director and Cricket Scotland chairman Keith Oliver..
“It has gone off really well. I am a bit emotional; I don’t know what to say really. I am just happy for the team. We have worked really hard it’s just a bonus that I happened to pull it off for the side in this game. It feels nice to score for a team like this,” reflected Williams.
The 26-year-old allrounder from Oshakati said his team was not worried about the UAE’s fightback on the third day of the final.
“I don’t think we were worried because we had a game plan. I thought they needed to get a lot more runs to get ahead of us. The pitch was playing really well.
“If we had to chase 300-350 then it would have been very difficult with their spin attack. But we just backed our game plan. You saw this morning we had ten guys on the boundary because we knew the game was in our hands. They had to come out and score runs. It’s nice that it all went our way,” said Williams.
Scores in brief:
UAE 79 all out in 25.3 overs (N Aslam 38; K Burger 7-38, L Klazinga 2-35) and 427 all out in 173.1 (Arshad 50, Aslam 48, Patil 94, Saqib 160 not out; 5-80, S Burger, Klazinga 3-98)
Namibia 320 all out in 75.2 (Steenkamp 66, S Burger 73, Williams 116; 3-46 Arshad) and 187-4 in 39.4 (Williams 113 not out, Steenkamp 35; Amjad 3-54)
Result: Namibia won by six wickets
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