‘Didn’t get practice under floodlights’, says Namibia’s Gerhard Erasmus:ICC responds, controversy before India’s second World Cup match

The T20 World Cup 2026 match between India and Namibia will be played today (Thursday) at Delhi’s Arun Jaitley Stadium. Before this match, Namibia captain Gerhard Erasmus has expressed displeasure regarding the practice session timing.
Actually, this match against India is a day-night match, but Namibia did not get a chance to practice at night. They had to train in the afternoon. The surprising thing was that when the Namibian team was leaving after practicing in the afternoon, the Indian team along with the Canadian team arrived to train under floodlights. Note that Canada’s next match is against UAE at 3 PM on Friday. Namibia captain says -‘We don’t have lights in our country’
On the eve of the match, Gerard Erasmus shared his concerns saying, ”We don’t have floodlight infrastructure in Namibia. Except for players who have played foreign leagues or the last World Cup, no one is used to playing at night. We were not given time to train at night before the match against India. I don’t know why this happened, while both India and Canada got night sessions. Now we will just go out on the field and fight.” ICC’s response: Namibia made late request for time change
The ICC spokesperson has clarified on this controversy. They said, ‘’Training schedules were sent to all teams on January 27 itself. We accept time change requests as long as possible. Namibia asked for time change on the night of February 10, which was a very late request. Due to this reason, changes could not be made to the schedule.” Coach was confident of getting night practice
Namibia’s coach Craig Williams was also assured after the last match that they would get a chance to practice at night before the match against India. He had said on Tuesday that playing under lights is always challenging for us because we are not used to it, so we want to take full advantage of this night session. However, the coach’s planning failed due to not getting permission from the ICC. Attempting a comeback after a loss to the Netherlands
Namibia has already lost their first match against the Netherlands. Now their path will be even more difficult against the world’s No. 1 T20 team, India. Without practising under lights, facing Indian bowlers and dew at Delhi’s Arun Jaitley Stadium will be a big test for Namibian batsmen.