Watch! Umpiring howler has cricket fans on Twitter seeing red

The first round of qualifying matches on Sunday and Monday had some telling results. The games saw some huge upsets happen on both days as two former world T20 champions suffered losses. Namibia on Sunday beat Sri Lanka by 55 runs in the first game of the tournament. Scotland then beat West Indies the two-time champs by 42 runs on Monday to put the Caribbean powerhouses under pressure.

The story as it happened –

Namibia and Netherlands took on each other in the first clash for Group A on Tuesday. The match was played at Simmonds Stadium at Geelong and Namibia won the toss and chose to bat first. While Namibia made a winning start by beating Sri Lanka, the Netherlands team also had made a winning start by beating UAE.

Umpiring howler takes centerstage –

Paul Van Meekeren was bowling to Stephan Baard in the 5th ball of the sixth over of the innings. The ball tailed in and struck the batter on the pad and the Dutch went up for a huge appeal. The on-field umpire, Joel Wilson raised his finger and gave the batter out, who was quick to refer it upstairs via DRS.

3rd umpire Marais Erasmus who was helmed with the task of checking the DRS made a fatal error. Erasmus did not see the huge nick the batter had got as he went for the ball tracking. The 3rd umpire Erasmus then corrected his folly and went back to check for the edge and found a huge inside edge and over turned the decision.

Netherlands bowlers restrict the Namibians to 121 –

Opting to bat first, Namibia lost Divan La Cock for duck, before Stephan Baard and Michael Van Lingen added 26 for the 2nd wicket. Lingen (20), Baard (19) were the top order contributors.

The top scoer was Jan Frylinck yet again with 43 off 48 balls with a four and six to his credit. Same late order hitting by Namibia captain Gerhard Erasmus, Wiese and Smit helped the side to 121 from the 20 overs.

Holland off to a good start –

Vikramjit Singh and Max ODawd added 59 for the 1st wicket in just 50 balls as both the batter mixed caution with aggression. Singh scored 39 off 31 balls with 3 fours and 2 sixes, while ODawd scored run a ball 35 with one four and one six. Post the fall of Singh, ODawd and Bas De Leede added 33 runs for the 2nd wicket.

Namibia fights back with flurry of wickets –

Netherlands were 92/1 from 13.5 overs with the run rate needed under 5 runs per over. Smit with 2 wickets and some tight fielding sparked life back into the game. Holland lost 4 wickets for mere 10 runs as they slid to 102 for 5 from 16.4 overs. Holland now needed 20 runs from 20 balls and there was panic. Bas De Leede with 30* and Tom Pringle 8* saw the team through to an 5 wicket win with 3 balls to spare.

Twitter reacts –

The umpiring howler by Joel Wilson and Erasmus did not please the twitter fans, although it did not affect the result much as Holland romped home to their 2nd win. You can read all the tweets below.