Afghanistan prepares to locks horns with Namibia

The ICC World Twenty20 Sri Lanka 2012 will have the first of its two qualifiers on Thursday afternoon when unbeaten Afghanistan and Namibia go head to the head in the 1st Qualifying Final of the ICC World Twenty20 Qualifier UAE 2012 at the Dubai International Cricket Stadium (DICS) on Thursday.

The match will start at 1400 (local time) and entry to the picturesque stadium, located inside the Dubai Sports City, will be free. This will be one of the six matches at the DICS from 22-24 March to be shown live online at www.espnstar.com/live.

The ICC has also secured live television coverage of the games to be played at the DICS into key territories via ESPN STAR Sports and its licensees around the globe, ensuring prominent exposure for the event across Asia, Africa, the Middle East, North America and beyond.*

While the winner of Thursday afternoon's match will qualify for the tournament proper, the second and final qualifier will emerge on the morning of 24 March when the loser of the 1st Qualifying Final will square-off against the winner of the Preliminary Final (to be played between Netherlands, Canada, Ireland and Scotland in a cross-over format) on the morning of the same days at DICS.

In the tournament finale at the DICS on 24 March, the two qualifiers will square-off against each other and at stake will be the winner's trophy as well as the placing in the Sri Lanka tournament. The tournament winner will join Australia and the West Indies in Group B while the losing team will complete Group A which also includes defending champion England and 2007 winner India.

Defending tournament champion Afghanistan enters Thursday's match against Namibia as firm favourite. Apart from being very consistent with its performance which at times became simply outstanding, Afghanistan will also be returning to its happy hunting ground where it beat Ireland by eight wickets in the final of the ICC World Twenty20 Qualifier UAE 2010 to reach the ICC World Twenty20 2010 in the West Indies.

In this tournament to date, Afghanistan defeated Papua New Guinea (PNG) by six wickets, Netherlands by four wickets, Denmark by 89 runs, Nepal by 34 runs, Canada by 41 runs, Hong Kong by nine wickets and Bermuda by 15 runs.

Afghanistan's wicketkeeper-batsman Mohammad Shahzad is in good form of late and is the second leading run-getter in the tournament with 261 runs. Karim Sadiq is 11 runs behind Shahzad with 255 runs.

In contrast, Namibia entered the tournament as the seventh seeded side and topped Group B, which also included Ireland and Scotland, through some brilliant performances by tournament's leading run-getter Raymond van Schoor (323 runs), as well as opener Louis van der Westhuizen who scored one of the two centuries of the tournament while smashing a 51-ball 106 not out against Scotland.

In the league matches, Namibia brushed aside the challenge of Ireland by four runs, Scotland by 49 runs, the USA by 17 runs, Uganda by four runs, Kenya by seven wickets, Oman by 36 runs and Italy by 27 runs.

Namibia's Christoffel Viljoen and Dawlat Zadran of Afghanistan share sixth position in the leading wicket-takers' list with 11 wickets apiece.

Shakti Gauchan of Nepal leads the table with 14 wickets from seven matches, followed by Bermuda's Curt Stovell who has13 wickets. Ireland's Boyd Rankin, Majid Haq of Scotland and Oman's Zeeshan Siddiqui have 12 wickets apiece.

Looking ahead to the crunch match, Afghanistan captain Nawroz Mangal said: "This event has been great and we couldn't have done it without Kabir Khan our coach who has helped us get this far in the event.

"We've had some great individual performances that I hope will carry through into tomorrow's game and hopefully through to Saturday. The likes of Mohammad Shahzad, Karim Sadiq and Dawlat Zadran have been key but the whole team has been performing well and they will hopefully continue those performances tomorrow and beyond.

"Namibia are a good side whom we have faced before both in 2009 at the ICC Cricket World Cup Qualifier and also we played a warm-up fixture against them ahead of this tournament but we are confident we will qualify for Sri Lanka later this year."

Namibia captain Sarel Burger sounded equally confident ahead of the big match when he said: "We have been fortunate with guys like Louis van Westhuizen and Raymond van Schoor who have stood up well. The fact that we played Ireland and Scotland early on helped us a lot, the Ireland win took a lot of pressure off us.

"It was a long road, the hard work has been done. The team has to stick together for the next few games. Afghanistan is going to be a good battle. They come quite hard early on just like us. The play-offs is a nice concept, it gives all teams a good chance to qualify for the ICC World Twenty20.

"We are confident of our team's chances. We have had one or two off-days, whereas Afghanistan has been near perfect. Maybe tomorrow could be their off-day."

Namibia opener van der Westhuizen said: "We've achieved what we set out to do and reached the final of the tournament. We played one of our warm-up matches against Afghanistan, so we have seen a bit of them. It is now just down to analysing them and working out our plans on how we can beat them.

"It is always nice to have the opportunity to play a live television match and for people to see us play. Hopefully I can do well and hopefully our team can do well.

"It would be a huge thing for the players and the people back home if we can qualify. We're looking forward to the challenge of playing Afghanistan."

Apart from earning the right to play alongside the 10 Full Members in one of the hottest formats of the sport today, the two qualifiers will also receive substantial funding from the ICC to prepare for the Sri Lanka event.

The two qualifying sides will receive preparation participation fees of US $250,000 ahead of the tournament beginning on 18 September 2012.