Gareth Delany showed again yesterday why he is a current member of Ireland’s one-day international side with a second successive 50 for Ireland Wolves in Namibia.

But this time, it was in a losing cause as the hosts brought in their big guns and they had too much ammunition for the Ireland hopefuls, as they claimed a crushing six wickets victory with more than 16 overs to spare.

Delany followed up his 72 in Friday’s series-levelling win with 81 from 77 balls but it accounted for almost half of the Wolves total of 178 and a third wicket stand of 96 between Namibia skipper Gerhard Erasmus and Nicole Loftie Eaton set up comfortable chase.

However, a fourth wicket quickly followed and if Delany had been rewarded with what looked a plumb lbw shout against JJ Smit, it would have been 118 for five and one of the big fish would have been back in the pavilion.

Instead, Smith and Erasmus plundered the remaining 61 runs in just 28 balls, Smit hitting four sixes and the captain two, and Delany’s figures went from 0-11 to 0-43 in the space of 10 balls!

Graham Hume made the initial breakthrough with his third delivery and Mike Frost, who took the other new ball, followed up with a wicket in his third over to reduce Namibia to 15 for two.

But that was as good as it got for the Wolves and while the slow left armer deservedly finished with figures of three for 39, the other three bowlers had aggregate analysis of 0-122 from 18 overs!

Murray Commins was Wolves second top scorer but, with wickets falling at the other end, it took him 21 overs to score 30 and he then pulled Jan Frylinck - one of seven Namibia players who featured in their T20 World Cup win over Ireland last October - tamely to short mid-wicket.

Hume stayed with Delany for 14 overs, adding 63 for the seventh wicket but he was the second of three run outs and despite Delany trying to keep the strike after his dismissal, the innings was all over with 15 balls unused.

Ireland Wolves 178 (47.3 overs, G Delany 81, M Commins 30, G Hume 21, J McCollum 13, N Rock 11, S Doheny 10) Namibia 179-4 (33.5 overs, G Erasmus 66 not out, N Loftie-Eaton 60; M Frost 3-39, G Hume 1-14). Namibia won by six wickets and lead series 2-1.