Namibia cricket staff captain Gerhard Erasmus has questioned why his aspect was not given an evening coaching session forward of their under-lights ICC Males’s T20 World Cup 2026 conflict towards defending champions India in the present day on the Arun Jaitley Stadium in Delhi.
“Yeah, we have not been given an evening coaching (session) earlier than this recreation, I do not know why. I believe India has two evening coaching (classes) and I see outdoors that Canada may have an evening coaching now, so make of that what you need, however we’ll simply rock up and do our Namibian manner, which is to battle,” Erasmus mentioned.
Namibia performed a day match towards the Netherlands on Monday after which skilled in daylight on the next two days, he mentioned, whereas India skilled twice at evening within the lead-up to the fixture.
The query turned extra pertinent when Erasmus and his teammates, simply as Namibia have been making ready to go away the venue, noticed Canada beginning to prepare alongside India in an evening session on the similar venue regardless of Canada being scheduled to play a day match towards the UAE on Friday.
Erasmus mentioned the difficulty mattered as a result of Namibia have restricted expertise taking part in beneath lights, as they don’t have floodlights again dwelling and don’t compete in lots of evening or day-night match-ups.
“We have not bought any (flood) lights in Namibia… the day/evening video games. Infrastructure-wise, it is most likely the problem for us, so yeah, it isn’t an off-the-cuff factor for guys that do not have (expertise)…” he mentioned.
“I believe barring the blokes who performed within the Nepal Premier League and the ILT20 and the World Cups that we have performed, you do not actually get accustomed to lights and coaching beneath it fairly often,” Erasmus added.
The ICC mentioned Namibia’s request for a coaching session beneath lights had come too late.
“All groups got the coaching schedules effectively upfront of the match – on 27 January – and requests for change in timings have been entertained wherever potential,” a spokesperson mentioned.
“Nevertheless, Namibia’s request got here in solely the earlier evening (February 10) – too late for us to regulate the schedule,” they added.
Namibia certified for the match after successful the Africa qualifier in Harare however started their marketing campaign with a defeat towards the Netherlands. They face america nationwide cricket staff and Pakistan cricket staff of their remaining group fixtures, each scheduled to start out at 3pm.
