- Wednesday, May 07, 2025
By: Shubham Ghosh
NAMIBIA might be playing in their maiden T20 World Cup in the UAE this month but their seasoned campaigner David Wiese is already a man of significant knowledge about the game. The 36-year-old has had considerable exposure around the world and has played for South Africa in international cricket. He also feels India captain Virat Kohli is “obsessive” and “wants to be the best”.
The South Africa-born medium-fast bowler had qualified to play for Namibia since his father was born in the African nation. He has experience of playing in a major ICC (International Cricket Council) tournament as he represented the Proteas in the 2016 T20 World Cup which was played in India.
“Namibia approached me when I had signed the Kolpak deal in 2017. My international career was over and I expected to never play international cricket and I had come to terms with that. Namibia approached me, Albie Morkel and Pierre de Bruyn (head coach) asked me will playing for Namibia be something I’ll be interested in? I never thought I’ll ever play international cricket again, so when the opportunity comes around, you would be stupid to not take it. I am thankful to them that they saw value in me,” Wiese told Asian News International in an interaction organised by the ICC.
Wiese also has an opinion about Kohli since he has played for Royal Challengers Bangalore in the Indian Premier League under Kohli’s captaincy. Having seen the ace batsman from close quarters, Wiese knows what makes him tick.
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“Virat is just obsessive, he wants to be the best and he would not stop until he is the best and that for me, is his biggest quality. He is probably one of the best in the world but he still wants to improve. He is already a legend of the game but that is not good enough for him. He wants to become better, he has got a passion for the game. In training, he would spend hours and hours, working on different things. He has never been content, he is always looking to improve,” Wiese, who was part of the Namibia team that beat the UAE in a T20 game in Dubai on Tuesday (5), said.
Namibia made it to this stage of the upcoming World Cup after defeating Oman, one of the two hosts of the tournament, in the playoffs of the qualifiers which were held in Dubai in October 2019.
Namibia are placed in Group A of the Qualifying Stages alongside former champions Sri Lanka, the Netherlands, and Ireland. The top two sides from the group will qualify for the Super 12 Stages. They will play their first game against the Lankans at the Sheikh Zayed Stadium in Abu Dhabi on October 18.
“Yeah, we have a tough pool and it will be difficult for us to get through, all other teams we will be playing against have some top-quality international players so we are going to have our work cut out. We have got a lot of talented players out there. Namibia might not have known guys, but they are talented. They have been welcoming towards me. I will be chatting to the guys, I’ll be asking a lot of questions and if I can just help out other guys, that will be a job well done,” Wiese said.
Namibia featured in the 2003 50-over World Cup in South Africa but lost all their six games.
