One for Three, and a Hundred That Made It Hurt: South Africa Win by 157 in Windhoek to Take the ODI Series 2-0

Namibia won the toss on Friday morning and asked South Africa to bat. It is the decision a side makes when it believes in its new ball and in the hour that follows. Twenty overs later, Connor Esterhuizen and Tony de Zorzi were still there and the field was spreading. By the time they were separated, South Africa were 214 for 2 and the match had already been decided — it simply had not been played out yet.

South Africa made 335 for 9. Namibia, needing 336, lost three wickets for one run inside 3.2 overs and were bowled out for 178 in 41.5. South Africa won by 157 runs, and with it the three-match series, which they now lead 2-0. Esterhuizen, who kept wicket and made 119 from 110 balls, was Player of the Match.

South Africa did not begin well. Jordan Hermann, who had made 150 on debut two days earlier, was caught at 31 for 1 in the eighth over, and the first powerplay yielded only 40. Namibia had the start they had chosen to bowl for.

What they did not have was a second act. Connor Esterhuizen, keeping wicket and batting at three in this XI, and Tony de Zorzi then batted through the entire middle of the innings. Their second-wicket stand was worth 183, and it carried South Africa from 31 for 1 to 214 for 2 in the 36th over. The 150 of that partnership came from 147 balls — a run a ball for two and a half hours, which is the most ruthless rate in fifty-over cricket because nobody notices it happening.

Esterhuizen's fifty took 73 balls; his hundred came up in exactly 100, with seven fours and five sixes at that point. He finished with 119 from 110, eight fours and six sixes, caught by Gerhard Erasmus off Ruben Trumpelmann. De Zorzi's fifty took 58 balls and he made 79 from 87 — the steadier end of the stand, as it had been in the first ODI.

The second powerplay, overs 10.1 to 40, produced 202 runs for the loss of three wickets. That is where the match sits. The last ten overs were noisier and less efficient: 93 runs but five wickets, with Dewald Brevis making 37 from 30 with three sixes and Eathan Bosch hitting 29 from 13 balls with four of them. Five wickets fell in that stretch and South Africa still finished on 335 for 9, which tells you how completely the middle overs had done the work.

A chase of 336 needs a start. Namibia lost Michael van Lingen in the second over, Malan Kruger in the third, and Jan Frylinck in the fourth. All three made ducks. The scoreboard read 1 for 3 after 3.2 overs, and the first powerplay finished at 32 for 4.

It is worth being precise about what went wrong, because it was not carelessness. Van Lingen faced nine balls for his duck and Kruger four; these were batters trying to survive, not to attack. Eathan Bosch and Duan Jansen simply bowled better than they could handle with a new ball in Windhoek, and the chase was gone before Namibia had scored a boundary.

That left Gerhard Erasmus. He made 68 from 84 balls, reaching fifty from 58, and added 71 for the seventh wicket with Jan Balt after Namibia had been 59 for 6 — the fifty of that stand taking 61 balls, which in the circumstances was as close to normal cricket as the day allowed. He was eventually caught off Nqobani Mokoena, the South African debutant, for the only wicket of Mokoena's first ODI.

Erasmus had already held four catches in the field — Brevis, Bosch, Jansen and Subrayen — before he batted. Captaining a side that was outplayed, he had the best day of anyone in a Namibian shirt at both ends of the match. Ruben Trumpelmann's 30 from 27 was Namibia's second-highest score, which is a sentence that says most of what needs saying about the top order.

With the ball, Namibia were not disgraced. Jack Brassell took 4 for 64 in his ten overs, two of them in the last three, and Trumpelmann's 10-1-57-2 was honest work against a set pair. Balt's two wickets and Jan Nicol Loftie-Eaton's one came late. The problem was the thirty overs in the middle when nobody could break through, and by then Namibia had no way back.

Two matches in, the pattern at the Namibia Cricket Ground is consistent. The new ball is worth something and the old one is not. South Africa scored 40 in their first ten overs, then 202 in the next thirty. Namibia lost four wickets in their first ten for 32 and, once Erasmus had survived that period, scored freely enough to make 71 for the seventh wicket.

That is a surface which rewards whoever gets through the first hour, and on Friday only one side did. It also explains why Namibia chose to field. The decision was defensible; the execution after the eighth over was not. South Africa lost one wicket in the first powerplay and then batted for twenty-five overs without losing another.

335 for 9 is not a flat-track total in the way 400 would be. South Africa lost nine wickets to get there and needed Bosch's 29 from 13 at the end. But a target of 336 at this ground, against a top order that has now failed twice in three days, was always going to be more than Namibia could construct.

In the first ODI of this series, Connor Esterhuizen made 10 from 19 balls and was caught at fine leg in the seventh over. On Friday he kept wicket, batted three, made 119 from 110, and took two catches behind the stumps as Namibia's chase fell apart.

The innings was built in two distinct halves. The first fifty took 73 balls, made while South Africa were rebuilding from 31 for 1 and while de Zorzi was finding his own rhythm. The second fifty took 27. By the time he reached three figures from his 100th ball he had five sixes, and he added a sixth before Trumpelmann found him. A strike rate of 108 does not sound extraordinary until you remember it started at 68.

The keeping matters too. Two of Namibia's ten wickets were caught behind — Louren Steenkamp and Loftie-Eaton, both off Duan Jansen — in a spell where Jansen was getting movement and the edges were coming quickly. A hundred and two catches from a wicketkeeper in his second ODI is a full day's work.

Our preview asked whether Namibia could make this ODI series competitive or whether it was heading towards a South African formality. The answer was a 157-run formality, and we should say plainly that we did not expect it to arrive in that form. Posing the question was fair. Failing to anticipate 1 for 3 was not our finest hour.

We flagged Ruben Trumpelmann's new ball as the contest to watch. Mixed: he took 2 for 57 from his ten overs, which is respectable against a stand of 183, and he then turned out to be Namibia's second-highest scorer with 30 from 27. He did his job at both ends and it was not close to enough.

We overrated Jan Frylinck's ODI method. He was out for a three-ball duck, his second failure of the series after 7 from 16 in the opener. Two matches is a small sample, but we have now named him twice and been wrong twice.

What we called correctly was South Africa's middle-overs discipline — and it held at both ends of the match. With the bat, their second-wicket pair scored 183 through precisely that phase. With the ball, having reduced Namibia to 59 for 6, South Africa squeezed rather than chased wickets: Prenelan Subrayen went for 26 from seven overs without taking one, Jason Smith 14 from four. Namibia's last five wickets took nearly 26 overs to fall, and the match never reopened.

The third ODI is on Sunday, September 13, at the same ground. The series is already South Africa's; what remains is whether Namibia can avoid a 3-0 result and, more usefully, whether their top order can produce anything at all in fifty-over cricket against this attack.

The specific problem is now clearly identified. In two matches Namibia's best individual score is Erasmus's 68, and their openers have contributed 34 and 15 in the first ODI and 0 and 0 in the second. The batters who beat South Africa in a T20I less than a fortnight ago are the same people; the difference is that a T20 innings can be rescued from 30 for 3 and a fifty-over chase of 336 cannot.

For South Africa, the questions are pleasanter. Esterhuizen has a hundred and Jordan Hermann has 150, both in their first week of ODI cricket. Duan Jansen has 4 for 31 and Nqobani Mokoena has a wicket in his first match. A tour that could have been a box-ticking exercise is instead producing new names, which is the most valuable thing a series like this can do.