Phillips and Neesham set up crushing New Zealand win with death-overs bash
Win takes New Zealand to No. 2 on the Group 2 table, but they aren't assured of a semi-final spot yet
Namibia's faster bowlers took the pace off early on. They bowled a succession of cross-seam cutters into the pitch, and slower deliveries. Anything but seam-up the traditional way. Without any swing, both Guptill and Mitchell trusted the even bounce to hit through the line without a worry. And then the first ball of the fifth yielded Guptill's wicket when he picked out mid-off as David Wiese struck.
Prior to this game, Gerhard Erasmus had bowled 30.3 overs across 28 T20Is, averaging one-and-a-bit overs per game. On Friday, he sent down four overs, three of which went for just eight with Williamson's wicket to boot. He did so with a broken ring finger on his right hand. The run rate fell to below six at the start of the death overs as the batters struggled to force the pace. Between overs ten and 16, there were just 34 runs for the loss of Williamson and Conway. At 96 for 4, New Zealand needed a big finish.
Less than 24 hours after earning a Test call-up after nearly two years, Phillips batted the way he normally does: see-ball-hit-ball. And it needed some improvisation and brute force to take the surface out of the equation. Of course, it helped that Namibia's seamers either went length or too full in search of the yorker, completely deviating from the very formula that brought them success earlier in the day. Neesham too came out swinging and connected with pretty much every single strike.
In trying to preserve wickets, there was a sense Namibia were being way too conservative. But Stephan Baard and Michael van Lingen picked up the pace in the last two overs of the powerplay. From no boundaries in the first four, they hit three fours and a six to end the powerplay at 36 for 0.
Shashank Kishore is a senior sub-editor at ESPNcricinfo