How good is your memory ? - do you remember that 25th Match of ICC ODI World Cup played at Pietermaritzburg, on Feb 23, 2003- India won by 181 runs !
The match will start in few hours now ! - the Q is Who replaces Abhishek Sharma in India's XI, if he hasn't regained full fitness after being hospitalised for a stomach bug and then discharged on Wednesday? Sanju Samson is likely to be the first choice as the reserve specialist opener, but a left-field option could be the allrounder Washington Sundar, who resumed training with the Indian squad on Tuesday after recovering from a rib injury.
India play Namibia at Kotla this night !! Namibia, is a stable parliamentary democracy in Southern Africa. Known as the "Land of the Brave," it is the second least densely populated country in the world. It is home to the world's oldest desert, the Namib, and the second-largest canyon, the Fish River Canyon. Namibia borders the Atlantic Ocean, Angola, Zambia, Botswana and South Africa. Zimbabwe lies less than 200 metres (660 feet) away along the Zambezi river near Kazungula, Zambia. Namibia's capital and largest city is Windhoek.
The Namib is a coastal desert in Southern Africa. According to the broadest definition, the Namib stretches for more than 2,000 kilometres (1,200 mi) along the Atlantic coasts of Angola, Namibia, and northwest South Africa, extending southward from the Carunjamba River in Angola, through Namibia and to the Olifants River in Western Cape, South Africa. Annual precipitation ranges from 2 millimetres (0.079 in) in the aridest regions to 200 millimetres (7.9 in) at the escarpment, making the Namib the only true desert in southern Africa.
Namibia
became a German colony in 1884 under Otto von Bismarck to forestall perceived
British encroachment and was known as German South West Africa
(Deutsch-Südwestafrika). The Palgrave Commission by the British governor in
Cape Town determined that only the natural deep-water harbour of Walvis Bay was
worth occupying and thus annexed it to the Cape province of British South
Africa. From 1904 to 1907, the Herero
and the Nama took up arms against ruthless German settlers. In a calculated
punitive action by the German settlers, government officials ordered the
extinction of the natives in the OvaHerero and Nama genocide. In what has been
called the "first genocide of the 20th century", the Germans
systematically killed 10,000 Nama (half the population) and approximately
65,000 Herero (about 80% of the population). The survivors, when finally
released from detention, were subjected to a policy of dispossession,
deportation, forced labour, racial segregation, and discrimination in a system
that in many ways foreshadowed the apartheid established by South Africa in
1948. The German minister for
development aid apologised for the Namibian genocide in 2004. However, the
German government distanced itself from this apology. Only in 2021 did the German government
acknowledge the genocide and agree to pay €1.1 billion over 30 years in
community aid.
Etosha National Park is a famous park in northwestern Namibia and one of the largest national parks in Africa. It was proclaimed a game reserve in 1907 in Ordinance 88 by the Governor of German South West Africa, Friedrich von Lindequist. "The Ghosts of Etosha" are elephants at the Etosha National Park in Namibia. They were given the name because they are often covered in the white dust found in the reserve. [pic from X]
Back on that day in 2003 at South Africa, India first piled up a mammoth score - 311/2 - and then used spin to tighten the screws on an inexperienced Namibian side, skittling them for 130 and winning easily by 181 runs.
Namibia was introduced to cricket through its southern neighbour, South Africa, before and during World War I. And the game grew in the country during its time as a South African protectorate for over 70 years when the team (as South West Africa) played in South Africa's domestic system from the 1960s to the 1980s, and then again in the 2000s. More recently, Namibia gained some players from South Africa, including allrounder David Wiese, whose father was born in Namibia, and leading ODI wicket-taker Ruben Trumpelmann. Namibia gained global recognition after playing in the 2003 World Cup, but had to wait 16 years to regain ODI status.
Namibia's challenge always lay in resources with a population of a little over 2.5 million and limited facilities. There are only five premier league clubs in Namibia, nine cricket fields and the national team play their fixtures at a club ground, Wanderers. At the 2021 T20 World Cup, they made it to the Super 12s, securing an automatic spot for the 2022 tournament in Australia, although they were unable to repeat that feat there. In February 2024, No. 5 batter Jan Nicol Loftie-Eaton hit then-then fastest T20I century, off 33 balls, against Nepal. A year later, Namibia beat South Africa in the first international between the neighbours. Fast bowler Ruben Trumplemann took 3 for 28 and left-arm spinner Bernard Scholtz conceded only 16 runs in his four-over spell to clinch a low-scoring T20I thriller. A reliable middle-order batter and a handy offspinner, Gerhard Erasmus has been a key figure in Namibia's rise in the 2020s and now captains the team.
The India Namibia match in
WC 2003 was played at – Pietermaritzburg, the capital and second-largest city
of the KwaZulu-Natal province in South Africa. Known as the "City of
Choice" or the "City of Flowers," it is a major administrative,
industrial, and educational hub situated about 80 kilometres inland from
Durban. Pietermaritzburg Railway
Station is the main railway station was constructed in the 19th century, lying between Durban (KwaZulu-Natal), Cape Town
(Western Cape) and Johannesburg (Gauteng).
Gandhi statue here – by Vanbasten 23 - Own work, CC BY-SA 3.0, https://commons.wikimedia.org/w/index.php?curid=72400042.
Historically, the station is famous as being the place where Mahatma Gandhi was
thrown off a train for riding first class in 1893.
12.2.2026
No comments:
Post a Comment