Never-say-die Wiese shows he has plenty of fight left in him

David Wiese may have only started playing for Namibia in 2021. But you could see how much it meant to him when he bowled Oman's Naseem Khushi off the third ball of the Super Over, which pretty much sealed the match. All the emotions of a World Cup thriller came out when he let out a celebratory scream.

Namibia would not have underestimated Oman, having only narrowly edged them in a five-match T20I series in April, but still, they would take a target of 110 "every single day of the week," in Wiese's words.

After taking a three-for with the ball, Wiese walked out in the 18th over, with Namibia needing 14 off 15 deliveries in the chase. He faced three dots to start with, but in the next over, he hit Oman's most prolific T20I bowler, Bilal Khan, for a six, and Namibia were left with five to win off the last over.

But Wiese had to watch from the other end as Namibia lost two wickets off the first three balls with no runs added to their tally. As the television camera shifted to Wiese, you could see his trepidation at not being able to get on strike.

When Malan Kruger squeezed a single to get Wiese on strike, his frustrations grew as he nailed a straight drive but it ricocheted to the mid-off region off the stumps at the non-striker's end. They managed to run two, and needed two more to get the two points.

But Mehran Khan, who bowled a miserly spell on the night, beat Wiese's attempted cut with a length ball. The keeper, Khushi, was standing up to the stumps and couldn't collect, and Namibia got the single away to narrowly avoid defeat.

The cameras panned to Wiese again, who had thought about trying to run a second, and the frustration on his face was clear again.

"First of all, I was frustrated that I missed out on that last ball," he said. "That was a big disappointment there but luckily we scampered a single to go into the Super Over."

In the Super Over, though, the allrounder would have no more frustrations.

"From there, I was just in the zone," Wiese said. "I wanted to rectify my mistakes, I wanted to be the guy to put in the big performance. Luckily the team entrusted me with that role.

"I knew that batting in the Super Over if I got one or two early boundaries, then I could put them under pressure and then we could try and take it out of their reach."

But getting those boundaries was easier said than done, on a pitch where both teams struggled to play their shots.

However, even in the few deliveries he got to face in the chase, Wiese was timing it better than most on the day, and it wasn't a surprise that he was on strike for the Super Over.

The first ball from Bilal was full outside off, but Wiese was able to jam his bat down and drill the ball through covers for four. Bilal then went for a yorker and missed, but Wiese didn't, sending the low full toss flying over wide long-on. He managed three more runs off the next two balls before Gerhard Erasmus closed the over out with two boundaries.

But Wiese's job was still not done. He was thrown the ball with Oman needing 22 to win. He only gave away one run off the first two balls, and then had Khushi inside-edging a very full delivery onto the stumps. Oman scored eight off the next three deliveries and eventually lost the game.

"I aged a couple of years tonight," Wiese said as he collected his Player-of-the-match award. "I don't have a lot of years left, so I need to take it easy. Just an emotionally draining game, I suppose."

Wiese was at the heart of Namibia's campaign in the T20 World Cup 2021, when they made it to the Super 12s, and since then he has featured in several franchise leagues across the world, including the Caribbean Premier League.

"Definitely, playing in the franchise tournaments, playing against some of the best players in the world, and playing the best tournaments in the world, that has helped me learn and develop into how to play in certain situations," Wiese said. "Playing so many franchise tournaments, I've been in those situations before. And that's what you're talking about, the experience.

"And I've also played a couple of CPLs now, so I know the conditions. And yeah, it just helped that I've been around the block a little bit, I suppose."

At 39 years, this could be Wiese's last World Cup. But he showed on Sunday night that he still has plenty of fight left in the tank.