Under the hazy night sky at the Arun Jaitley Stadium on Thursday, Ishan Kishan (61, 24b, 6×4, 5×6) and Hardik Pandya (52, 28b, 4×4, 4×6) garnered the applause of a boisterous crowd with blistering half-centuries. As the night wore on, Varun Chakaravarthy (2-0-7-3) bamboozled the Namibia batters with his assortment of tricks.

Theirs were the defining contributions as India romped past Namibia by 93 runs in the T20 World Cup Group-A contest. Chasing 210, Gerhard Erasmus & Co. folded up for 116.

While the visitors nearly kept up with the asking rate in the first six overs, their limited exposure to quality spin was laid bare when Varun and Axar Patel hunted in tandem.

For the African side, Erasmus was a shining speck with figures of 4-0-20-4 .His spell of off-spin entailed a dash of improvisation – a few balls were bowled with a low, slingy arm while some others were delivered from well behind the crease. India’s batters will have to brace up for more such unorthodoxy when they square up against Pakistan’s Usman Tariq in Colombo on Sunday.

After Namibia elected to field, India motored to 86 for one in the PowerPlay. Drafted in for the unwell Abhishek Sharma, Sanju Samson lofted Ruben Trumpelmann over the sight-screen in the first over, and whipped Ben Shikongo for a brace of maximums. But an opportunity to make more of his time in the middle was squandered when he flicked Shikongo to deep midwicket.

Kishan duly pounced on the faintest of errors from Namibia’s novice attack. Having called for a change of willow at the start of the fifth over, he tucked into left-arm medium-pacer J.J. Smit – four sixes on the trot saw the ball sail over fine leg, long-on and deep square-leg.

He backed it up with a pull along the ground for four to cap off a 28-run sixth over, and raised his half-century in a mere 20 balls .Just as Namibia may have begun fearing the worst, a brief period of respite followed. Between overs seven and 12, India lost the wickets of Kishan, Suryakumar Yadav and Tilak Varma whilst accumulating just 20 runs.

But normal service resumed as Hardik and Shivam Dube added 81 runs off 39 balls for the fifth wicket .Hardik was all brute force, targeting the arc from extra cover to cow corner with trademark swagger. By snaring five Indian batters for just four runs in the final two overs, Namibia limited the damage to an extent. Just not enough to impact the verdict.