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LETS DO THE DANCE . . . Blessing Muzarabani (right) is congratulated by his teammates after taking one of his three wickets yesterday. — Cricinfo

Sports Reporter
THE Zimbabwe Under-19 Cricket team will be looking to maintain their dominance over Namibia in the ICC Under-19 Cricket World Cup Plate quarter-finals Southern Africa derbyat the Bert Sutcliffe Oval in Lincoln, New Zealand today.

The youth outfit was knocked out of the main competition following losses to Australia and India in Group B encounters last week and have been drawn to face regional neighbours in the playoffs for positions nine to 16.

With Zimbabwe having secured one victory in the tournament and Namibia having lost in all of their games so far, the former will be more confident heading into this match.

In fact, Stephen Mangongo’s men have the psychological edge as they go into the match looking to make it six wins out of six against Namibia at Under-19 level. Zimbabwe began their tournament this year with a crushing 10-wicket win over Papua New Guinea, who they bowled out for 95 before reaching their victory target with 36 overs to spare. But the seven wicket defeat and another 10-wicket thumping by India left them third in Group B and unable to progress to the last eight of the main tournament.

Namibia on the other hand have lost all of their games so far in this competition, with defeats against Bangladesh, England and Canada.

Amidst the gloom, Eben van Wyk is the team’s leading run-scorer so far and is the man to watch. The middle-order batsman scored 55 against Bangladesh in a chase that was reduced to 20 overs using the DLS method. He also made a decent contribution against Canada where he made 32 from 40 balls.

Zimbabwe on the other hand will be looking up to Wesley Madhevere to continue with his fine form with both bat and ball.The 17-year old is the leading run-scorer and the leading wicket-taker for his team, and the only player to have made a fifty for Zimbabwe, Madhevere is the one to watch in this match.

An opening batsman and a very useful off-spin bowler, he was superb in the win over PNG where he made 53* and took three wickets. There have been five previous meetings between these teams at Under-19 level, all of which have been won by the Zimbabweans.

The first of those, in January 2000, featured a host of Zimbabwe players that went on to play for their country in senior internationals — Sean Ervine, Hamilton Masakadza and Tatenda Taibu all played in that match.

Squads:
Zimbabwe: Liam Roche (c), Gregory Dollar, Donald Mlambo, Tanunurwa Makoni, Jayden Schadendorf, Milton Shumba, Alistair Frost, Dion Myers, Nkosilatu Nunu, Jonathan Conolly, Wesley Madhevere, Kieran Robinson, Robert Chimhinya, Tinashe Nenhunzi, Taun Harrison

Namibia: Lohan Louwrens (c), Henry Brink, Petrus Burger, Jan-Izak de Villiers, Shaun Fouche, Jurgen Linde, Nicol Loftie-Eaton, Gerhard Lottering, Erich van Mollendorf, Dewald Nell, Mauritius Ngupita, Ben Shikongo, Floris Steenkamp, Ramon Wilmot, Eben van Wyk