Cricket-Kaia stars as Zimbabwe win by five wickets

Zimbabwe beat hosts ​Namibia by five ​wickets on Thursday ‌to keep ​alive hopes of reaching the weekend final of the Twenty20 ‌tri-series also involving South Africa. Innocent Kaia scored a T20 career-best 72 off 42 balls to help chase down ‌the target with 11 balls to spare at ‌the Namibia Cricket Ground.

Namibia were put into bat and captain Gerhard Erasmus hit an unbeaten 88 off 48 balls as ⁠they ​scored 156-6 ⁠in their 20 overs but Zimbabwe had little trouble chasing down ⁠the total as Kaia led the way with support ​from captain Sikandar Raza, who scored 29, as ⁠they amassed 159 for five. Zimbabwe won both their games against ⁠Namibia ​but lost twice to South Africa, who are playing Namibia in the last round-robin match on ⁠Friday.

South Africa have a 2-1 record and Namibia 1-2 ⁠after three ⁠matches each. The top two teams play a final on Sunday. (Writing by Mark ‌Gleeson ‌in Cape Town; editing by ​Pritha Sarkar)