Africa-Press – Zimbabwe. ZIMBABWE relaunched its World Cup preparations with an inspiring display, agonisingly going down by nine runs while chasing a mountainous 210 in the final T20I match against Afghanistan at Harare Sports Club yesterday.
The visitors, however, took the series 3-0, having outplayed the hosts in the opening T20Is earlier.
That indifferent campaign in the first two matches hurt the team’s recent successes, casting doubt on its competitiveness at the forthcoming T20 World Cup scheduled for India next year.
But yesterday’s near ability to chase down a mammoth total against a quality side like Afghanistan won back many hearts while also breathing impetus and confidence into the team heading into the triangular series.
Afghanistan elected to bat first after the toss. Openers Ramanullah Gurbaz and skipper Ibrahim Zadran scored half-centuries, 92 (48) and 60 (49) respectively. Sediqullah Atal and Mohammad Nabi finished unbeaten on 35 and 1 respectively as Afghanistan totalled 210, setting Zimbabwe a huge target of 211.
Brad Evans took two wickets for 33 runs from four overs, while Richard Ngarava claimed one. Given Zimbabwe’s struggles with the bat in the first two matches, many had written the Chevrons off, but captain Sikandar Raza, 51 (29), fought viciously from the front with a half-century. He got able support from opener Brian Bennett, who fell three runs shy of a 50, while all-rounder Ryan Burl’s entertaining innings, which included five sixes, saw him score 37 off 15 balls.
The show continued with Tashinga Musekiwa weighing in with 28 runs off 17 balls, with Wellington Masakadza remaining unbeaten on five as Zimbabwe were eventually bowled out for 201 runs on the last ball of the match. Abdhollah Ahmadzai picked three wickets for 42 runs from four overs, while Fazalhaq Farooqi and Fareed Ahmed took two each.
Earlier, Zimbabwe head coach Justin Sammons had chosen to look back, reminding people of what made the team a well-oiled machine in recent matches.
“These two games have been very disappointing, but obviously if you take it back a couple of months, two or three months, I think we played really good T20 cricket against Sri Lanka in that 2-1 series,” he said.
“I think we were positive in our approach and displayed good skills there. We competed in all the white-ball games in that series. I think we played really well in that Namibian series. I thought that was a really good series. Again, the way we went about it was brilliant and pleasing to see. And then through the qualifiers, we were good.
“So if we look at that, I think we’ve played really good T20 cricket up until these two games. On the flip side, with the Test space, I think we played really poorly and let ourselves down. Taking those lessons from those losses that we had in that tough period and then showing our learnings in the Test match. But again, that was one Test. For me, what we did well was we took the lessons from the tough games, and I think it’s essential that we do that here. We’ve let ourselves down.”
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