Big questions were raised over the International Cricket Council (ICC) after Namibia captain Gerhard Erasmus raised questions over the organisers of the 2026 T20 World Cup ahead of their clash against India in the 2026 T20 World Cup on Thursday (February 12) at the Arun Jaitley Stadium in Delhi, which will played under light as it will be the final game of a triple-header and start at 7:00 PM IST.
Erasmus was not happy that the Namibia team was not being allowed to train under lights before the game. The 30-year-old claimed that while India were allowed to train during the nighttime on two days in a row, they did not get a single session after sunset and once the floodlights were switched on.
Quite bizarrely, it also emerged that the Canadian team trained alongside the Indian team on Wednesday (February 11) despite them playing the UAE on Friday (February 13), which will be played in the afternoon (3:00 PM) start in a game that will not need the floodlights to be on.
"Yeah, we haven't been given a night training [session] before this game, I don't know why. I think India has two night training [sessions] and I see outside that Canada will have a night training now, so make of that what you want, but we'll just rock up and do our Namibian way, which is to fight," said Erasmus in a pre-match press conference.
Erasus further pointed out that Namibia do not get to play in the night often due to the absence of floodlights on their home grounds. He pointed out that playing at night brings out different challenges, and it is important for players to be accustomed to it.
"We haven't got any [flood]lights in Namibia... the day/night games," Erasmus said. "Infrastructure wise it's probably the challenge for us, so yeah it's not a casual thing for guys that don't have [experience]... I think barring the guys who played in the Nepal Premier League and the ILT20 and the World Cups that we've played, you don't really get accustomed to lights and training under it very often," Erasmus added.
Namibia's opening game of the tournament is a 11:00 AM start against Namibia, while their next two games are 3:00 PM starts against UAE and Pakistan in Chennai and Colombo, respectively.
Meanwhile, India and Namibia will face each other for only the second time in history in the shortest format. The first meeting during the 2021 T20 World Cup in Dubai saw the Men in Blue register an emphatic nine-wicket victory in Virat Kohli's last game as India's T20I captain.
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Aayush Kataria is a Senior Copy Editor at Times Network with four years of experience, having started his career in the organisation. He is a key memb...View More
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