Barras end US tour with loss to Namibia

THE Papua New Guinea Barramundis completed their second round of the Cricket World Cup League Two in Fort Lauderdale, Florida, yesterday.
After going down to the United States, they came up against a confident Namibia who had just beaten the hosts in their second game comfortably.
In the first game on Monday, Barramundis batted first, scoring 8/219 off their 50 overs.
The Barramundis lost two early wickets before Assad Vala’s 38 (48), Lega Siaka’s 33 (60) and Charles Amini Jr’s 44 (61) helped push PNG to a respectible score.
Norman Vanua’s 30 (30) pushed PNG over 200 on a slow wicket.
With Nosaina Pokana (2/30) and Hiri Hiri grabbing an early wicket each, the game was in the balance before Namibia’s Jean-Pierre Kotze (45) and captain Gerhard Erasmus (88) put on what proved to be a match-winning partnership of 124, with Craig Williams hitting the winning runs in the 49th over.
Vanua capped off a fine individual game with 1/26 (9.2) but to no avail as the Barramundis suffered another close loss.
The return game yesterday morning was equally disappointing as PNG went down by 27 runs although there were some standout individual performances.
Namibia batted first this time. Stephen Baard top-scored with 73 (97) and Zane Green’s 41 (40) helping them to 9/260.
Pokana bagging another three wickets for 32 and Riley Hekure on debut 2/32 off his 10 in a superb effort.
The Barramundis’ chase started well with Tony Ura off to a flyer (28) and Simon Atai (24) steady in a second wicket partnership of 75 with his captain.
Unfortunately, Vala watched a procession of wickets to see us reeling at 6/128, Hiri and Vanua played cameo roles but it was Vala who threatened to pull the game out of the fire.
Assad was eventually run out for a magnificent 104 (114) in the 45th over .