CHENNAI: Buoyed by the big win against Netherlands, the United States of America will look to carry forward the momentum when they take on Namibia in another Group A clash of the T20 World Cup at the MA Chidambaram Stadium here on Sunday afternoon.
USA's chances of entering the top-two for the Super Eights remain slim. They have to beat Namibia on Sunday, and hope that the top-two teams, India and Pakistan to faulter, which looks highly unlikely. Pubudu Dassanayake, coach of USA remains confident of a good show by his boys against Namibia. "Yeah, I think we are ahead (of Namibia). We had a great practice session under lights (before Netherlands match). And then on Friday, we got used to the conditions. So overall, I think we are ahead of Namibia, especially looking at the conditions," Dassanayake told in the pre-match press conference.
Post those heartbreaking losses to both India and Pakistan, Dassanayake explained the lessons they learnt.
"I think as a team, we know how good we are, but we just had to prove on the field and we are disappointed that we couldn't finish the India game well. Unfortunately, the schedule is in such a way that we had to play the two big countries first and then coming into Associates. Against Netherlands, it's basically a message to everyone that how far we are above basically the rest of the associate countries and this is a team that deserves to play more against full members," he opined.
The team battled through injuries on the course of the tournament so far. "We had one replacement but then even within the group we still have few injuries we try to manage whatever it is but the boys were very determined to get through this. So we were hungry when we came to the third game (Netherlands). And I think we showed what we have," he added.
Saiteja Mukkamalla will be one of the key players in the lead-up to this tie. "Sai is one of the best players we have. It's just that last game I couldn't play him because of the balance of the team. He's a USA product and we are proud to put him into the field and you all saw how good he was against Netherlands. He's the future of USA cricket," the coach said.
On the bowling front, Harmeet Singh will lead the attack and will be supported by Mohammad Mohsin and Nosthush Kenjige who performed well against Netherlands.
On the other hand Namibia, who are all but out of the super eight contention will need vast improvement in their batting, particularly against spin and tighter bowling execution at the death.
Skipper Gerhard Erasmus and Jan Frylinck are expected to be the main say in their batting, while JJ Smit and Jan Nicol Loftie-Eaton are likely to shoulder the bowling responsibilities.
Craig Williams, chief coach of Namibia feels that his team has prepared well to take on USA and the lessons learnt from the India game would come in handy.
"I think the last game we got a lot of confidence that we did really well against obviously an extremely strong Indian team. We prepared extremely well before the World Cup and we had really good training sessions. It was good for us to get a good idea of the USA team (how they played against Netherlands).We have covered all our bases and the big thing for us will be the players to go and execute those plans on the field," Williams said on the eve of the match.