THE Namibian national men's cricket team, the Richelieu Eagles sealed a 3-0 victory in their 50-over cricket series against Hong Kong when they won their final match by seven wickets on Sunday.

Lohan Louwrens' rich vein of batting form continued as he scored a great century at nearly a run a ball, to lead Namibia to a comfortable victory with 11 overs to spare.

After sending Hong Kong in to bat, Namibia got off to a good start as Ruben Trumpelmann dismissed Adit Gorawara for 5 and when Jan Frylinck dismissed Nizakat Khan for 11, they were two down with 34 on the board.

Babar Hayat and Yasim Murtaza revived the innings with a 35-run partnership, but Hayat retired hurt on 35 after pulling his hamstring and when Pikky Ya France trapped Aizaz Khan lbw for 1 they were three down for 128.

Haroon Arshad joined Murtaza in a 55-run partnership for the fourth wicket, before Arshad was trapped lbw by Tangeni Lungameni for 25, and when Gerhard Erasmus ran out Ehsan Khan for 7 with a direct hit, they were 139/5 with 13 overs remaining.

Murtaza was eventually dismissed for 68, while Dan Pascoe added 32 and Ayush Shukla 24 not out as they reached 224/7 off their 50 overs.

For Namibia, Trumpelmann took 2/48 off 10 overs.

Namibia's run chase got off to a great start as Louwrens and Zane Green put on 150 runs for the opening wicket at six runs an over before Green was dismissed for 60 off 68 balls (9x4).

Craig Williams added 21 and Shaun Fouche 23 not out, but Louwrens was the mainstay of the innings, scoring 111 off 115 balls (9x4, 2x6) as Namibia eased to a comfortable victory.

Sunday's victory followed two other resounding wins, as Namibia won the first match on 5 June by 65 runs and the second encounter on 9 June by 162 runs.

The series formed part of Namibia's preparations for next month's tour of Scotland where they will play the home team and Nepal in their 50-over ICC Cricket World Cup League 2 series and captain Gerhard Erasmus said he was happy that they had reached their targets.

"We haven't played a lot of 50-over cricket lately, so this tour was very important for us to play in similar conditions to what we could find in Scotland. I'm very happy with how we performed and the goals that we have achieved over the three games," he said.

Erasmus also expressed satisfaction with Louwrens' batting form in the series, which saw him finishing as the top run scorer with 228 runs at an average of 76,00, after posting scores of 54, 63 and 111.

"I'm delighted that Lohan Louwrens found his form in this series - to try and cement a place amongst the top three batters is really what we are looking for. We want the top three to score big runs, to have some continuity and perform consistently, so that's one area that I'm very excited about as the captain," he said.

"We also wanted to improve our performance in the field, because we were a bit below par with our fielding and bowling over the past few months, but we managed to get some crucial overs under the belt. We are trying to raise the consistency levels with the ball and we really want to get back to the exciting brand of fielding that we are known for and I think we did that quite well over three games," he added.

Besides Louwrens, other Namibian players also featured prominently in the series averages.

Nicol Loftie-Eaton was the second highest run scorer, with 154 runs at an average of 77,00, while Zane Green was fourth with 110 runs at an average of 36,66.

Ruben Trumpelmann was the top wicket taker with seven wickets at an average of 16,14, while JJ Smit and Tangeni Lungameni finished third and fourth with four wickets each at an average of 8,50 and 24,25 respectively.

Copyright The Namibian. Distributed by AllAfrica Global Media (allAfrica.com)., source News Service English