New Delhi: Namibia head coach Craig Williams praised Gerhard Erasmus for picking career-best figures of 4-20 against India despite his team suffering a 93-run defeat in their Group A clash at the Arun Jaitley Stadium on Thursday evening, adding that the skipper showed the world yet again about his skills with the ball.
Mixing high-arm and round-arm releases, including releasing the ball from behind the crease, Erasmus exploited just enough grip in the pitch to trigger double wobbles of the Indian batting line-up. He introduced himself in the eighth over and struck first ball, cramping Ishan Kishan on the pull and having him caught at deep midwicket.
Alongside left-arm spinner Bernard Scholtz, he throttled India’s scoring, as the pair conceded just 30 runs in six overs while removing Suryakumar Yadav and Tilak Varma in the attempt to break free. Erasmus returning in the 19th over looked a gamble against two set hitters. But substitute Dylan Leicher’s juggling catch at deep square leg to remove Hardik Pandya turned the tide. Axar Patel then misread a slow, low-arm delivery, leaving Erasmus with four wickets against his name.
“Look, he trains incredibly hard at all these variations, and he plays cricket around the world in some leagues. He bowls all the difficult overs, and some really tough overs. He’s continuously working on his game and trying to see how he can be more effective against batters. Again, against a world-class cricket team, he showed the world again what he’s got and his execution was just really good.”
“I think his first three overs went for 16 or something like that and then to bowl that 19th over as all under pressure - first ball going for six and then pulling it back, I think it was just really fantastic. So I’m really happy for him - he trains hard and he works hard on these variations in his game,” said Williams, while replying to a query from IANS in the post-match press conference.
He further defended Erasmus’s unconventional bowling technique, saying it was part of his standard approach. “He bowls like that as part of his armoury. It’s part of his toolbox to bowl a ball from behind the stumps. He’s done it for a number of years. So there wasn’t a specific tactic against India to do that. It’s basically the way that he bowls and over to get. Again, he got quite a bit of success out of it.”
The Namibian coach was pleased with his team’s bowling performance, particularly in restricting India to 209/9, especially with last five wickets falling in final 11 balls of the innings. “There’s a lot we can take out of this game. We really bowled well towards that back end. It was a tough power play and the players of India’s calibre when they take on the first six, it wasn’t looking too good for us.
“But the guys showed a lot of courage and they stuck to our plans. To go last three overs, less than 20 runs, and taking those four or five wickets is really, we’re really going to bank that moving forward in the tournament.” IANS
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