New Zealand through to Super League at top of pool

New Zealand swept into the Super League stage of the ICC Under-19 World Cup today with a six-wicket win over Namibia.

A whirlwind innings by Canterbury youth Neil Broom set the side up after an early worrying moment in the chase for 202 for victory.

Namibia, fresh from their victory over Sri Lanka on Tuesday, were always going to face a tough task to back-up today against New Zealand. They did struggle too.

Their middle-order were not able to build on a competitive start and struggled against the tight New Zealand spin and medium pace bowling before Burton van Rooi came and clubbed a fine 62 runs off 76 balls to set his side up for a score of 201/5.

The New Zealanders were put under some pressure and their fielding looked ragged at times as van Rooi and Tobias Verwey, especially, attacked with good effect. Verwey with the luxury of wickets behind him in the last few overs smashed 30 off 20 balls, as Namibia scored 79 off the last 10 overs.

There was some edginess in the New Zealand corner, made worse by the third over dismissal of dasher Jesse Ryder.

However, Broom, having his first bat of the tournament came to the wicket with an air of determination and after taking an over or two to get the measure of the pitch he set about the bowling.

"I just wanted to be careful, to play my natural game. The ball was coming on quite well, it was a good batting deck," he said afterwards.

Disappointed at not being included in the side for the first two games he said he tried to put that at the back of his mind.

He had felt he had been struggling when batting in the nets but once he was out in the middle everything fell into place.

Broom, who is enrolled to begin a carpentry course at Christchurch Polytechnic once the Cup is finished has been playing his first year of senior cricket this year and scored a century on debut for the East Shirley club. He's also had a century and a couple of half centuries at the national Under-19 tournament which preceded the final selection of the New Zealand team.

He is keen to take his cricket as far as he can but is not yet prepared to let it interfere with what is a promising rugby career.

After coming to the wicket at the fall of Ryder's wicket, he took immediate control and when the 50 partnership was posted with Stephen Murdoch, Broom had scored 45 runs off 45 balls. His 50 came up off 51 balls and included six fours and two sixes.

The Namibians had opened their attack with the medium pace left-arm bowling of Hendrik Geldenhuys and the off-spin of Michael Durant. Geldenhuys picked up Ryder for seven, but it wasn't until two run outs with New Zealand on 101 that there was any prospect of an opening appearing for the Africans.

And fears of that were soon allayed as captain Ross Taylor flayed the bowling to the point where a prospective century for Broom was very quickly taken off the agenda.

However, he did end up making 85 off 87 balls, including eight fours and two sixes before being the fourth batsman out with the score on 185.

It was a classy innings and never gave the Namibians a look-in as he played shots all around the wicket.

Taylor too, showed his style, and while there was an element of the bull-at-a-gate about it, his positiveness paid off and at the end he was 58 off 46 balls, his 50 having come up off 39 balls.

The winning runs were hit by Jordan Sheed as eight runs came of Verwey's over and by getting home in the 36th over New Zealand also gained a bonus point.

Of the Namibian bowlers Durant was the least costly with his five overs costing only 16 runs, but he wasn't called back when the New Zealand bowlers took control. The only bowler to send down his 10 overs was van Rooi, but they were at an expensive 59 runs.

New Zealand's next game will be against an as yet unknown opponent on Monday at Bert Sutcliffe Oval at Lincoln.