Vaughan & Strauss feast on Burgers

England comfortably won the first game of their African tour, although the eventual margin of victory does rather flatter the overall performance. Batting first, with the outfield still sodden from the heavy rain, the innings at first struggled to gain momentum. Ian Bell, opening the innings in his first representative one day game failed to score, and Solanki again failed to impress with an unconvincing 28. With the run-rate fairly sluggish at this point, and with not much experienced batting to come, a serious embarrassment was looking a distinct possibility. However, Michael Vaughan (89) and Andrew Strauss (73) banished those thoughts with a partnership of 150, which took England to highly a competitive total in what had been reduced to a 42-over game. After taking a while to steady the innings, they then set about the Namibian attack with gusto and were eventually enjoying themselves taking turns to try and deposit the ball somewhere in deepest Africa. After they eventually fell, there was time for Kevin Pietersen to briefly appear, but, disappointingly, the newcomer only made 5. Another failure from Geraint Jones meant that, not for the first time, Paul Collingwood, supported by Ashley Giles, was left to make the most of the remaining overs with an unbeaten 31.

When England bowled, they found wickets hard to come by. Even allowing for a couple of dropped catches, they will be slightly worried that Gough, Anderson and Wharf all failed to claim a single victim. It didn’t matter in the context of this game because Giles took three wickets, which ensured that Namibia never really threatened to manage the 6.2 runs an over which was their initial target. Simon Jones, who the hosts kindly allowed to bowl as England’s twelfth player, had some success in removing Keulder after the opener had made an impressive 57, but England will be looking for much more penetration from their battery of quicks from here on.

England 260 for 6 (Vaughan 89, Strauss 73, K. Burger 0 for 56, S Burger 1 for 23, L Burger 2 for 54)
Namibia 193 for 4 (Keulder 57, Marg 66, Giles 3 for 47)

England won by 67 runs

Written by David Lewis
Submitted by James Nixon

Posted by James