Asian champions Sri Lanka cricket team has suffered a 55-run defeat against Namibia in their opening match of the ICC Men’s T20 World Cup 2022. In the first match of Round 1, Namibia, batting first after losing the toss at the Symonds Stadium in Geelong, Australia, scored 163 for 7 in 20 overs and then bowled out the Sri Lankan team for 108 runs in 19 overs.
After this defeat, Sri Lanka’s hopes of reaching the Super 12 have suffered a major setback. This is the third major win for any Associates team in T20 International cricket against a full member team. This is Namibia’s 27th win in 39 matches in T20I cricket. The team’s victories against top-5 playing nations include one against Ireland, three against Zimbabwe and now one against Sri Lanka.
For Namibia, Jan Frylinck scored an unbeaten 44 runs off 28 balls with the help of 4 fours. Apart from this, he also took two wickets in bowling. Freelink was awarded the man of the match for his all-round performance. At the same time, Ben Ben Shikongo missed out on taking a hat-trick in the very first match. He took 2 wickets in the match. Bernard Scholtz also had two successes.
Namibia lost six wickets for 93 runs in 14.2 overs. At one point it seemed that they would not even reach 150 runs, but the pair of Freelink and Smit batted vigorously and added 70 runs for the seventh wicket. Freelink scored 44 runs in 28 balls with four fours while Smit scored 31 runs in 16 balls with the help of two fours and two sixes to set a target of 164 for Sri Lanka.
In response to this target, Sri Lanka lost their four wickets for 40 runs at one time. Bhanuka Rajapaksa (20) and captain Dasun Shanaka (29) put on 34 runs for the fifth wicket after handling the innings, but Sri Lankan wickets fell as Rajapaksa was dismissed for 74. Asia Cup winning Sri Lankan team were bundled out for 108 after losing their last five wickets for 34 runs. Captain Dasun Shanaka was the top scorer for Sri Lanka, who scored 29 runs. Apart from him, Bhanuka Rajapaksa scored 20 and Dhananjay de Silva scored 12 runs.
After this defeat, now former champions Sri Lanka have to play their second match only after the next 48 hours. The Sri Lankan team will play their next match in the tournament on Tuesday against the UAE at the same ground.