The Chevrons were humiliated by minnows Namibia at Wanderers Cricket Ground yesterday during a Cricket World Cup Qualifier, a match that could be described as the worst for a Test playing team.
The Zimbabweans were once again at the mercy of the Richelieu Eagles as they were hammered by a massive seven wickets in their opening encounter of the International Cricket Council (ICC) Men’s T20 World Cup Africa Qualifier in the Namibian capital, Windhoek.
The only way to describe the Chevrons below par and dismal performance is “unacceptable.”
Chevrons, despite having acclimatised to Namibian conditions a couple of weeks ago, were outplayed in all departments.
For anyone watching without knowledge, he or she would have thought that the Chevrons were the associate team while Namibia are the Test playing side.
It was a performance that no cricket fan expected as it was a one-sided performance.
Due to their dismal performance, the Chevrons find themselves at the bottom of the standings.
The new T20 captain, Sikandar Raza was disappointed with the way his charges played saying that they need to dust themselves up in the upcoming matches. He still has hope that fortunes will change for the Chevrons.
“Everything that could have gone wrong went wrong today. What we have been talking about in the last six months in T20 cricket is what went wrong; there are too many holes to fix. I still believe in this group of boys, I know we have made it harder for ourselves but we will fight, we have been fighting.
“We wanted to win all our games, if we needed a rude awakening then we have had that; we need to get back,” said Raza in the post-match interview.
After they were sent in to bat first, Zimbabwe were restricted to just 132/8 in 20 overs and the hosts went on to comfortably chase down the target in just under 15 overs, finishing on 134/3 in 14,3 overs to continue their dominance over the Chevrons.
Nick Welch
Zimbabwe’s struggles at the top continued as the openers, once again, failed to stand up and be counted, losing three wickets in the powerplay. Tadiwanashe Marumani was the first to fall with just six runs after facing two balls. Marumani’s opening partner, Nick Welch managed to score just eight runs in nine balls.
It was the former skipper, Craig Ervine who managed to put a decent score on the board as he top scored with 36 runs from 33 deliveries while Raza fell for 20 runs off 21 balls. Ryan Burl remained undefeated on 27 runs having faced 21 balls but his effort was not enough to help his team post a competitive score.
The experienced JJ Smit starred with the ball for Namibia, finishing with figures of 3/24 in his four over spell while Tangeni Lungumeni claimed two wickets for 21 runs in his three overs.
Defending the below par T20i score, Zimbabwean bowlers had no answers for the Namibian batters whose openers managed to put up a 88 runs stand for the first wicket.
Wellington Masakadza got the first breakthrough for the Chevrons, with the game already having slipped away from them in the eight over, leaving Namibia on 88/1.
Richard Ngarava and Blessing Muzarabani picked up one wicket apiece, conceding 20 and 29 runs in four and three overs respectively. Niko Davin, who appeared to have been pouncing on every ball that came wide, top scored for the Eagles with a brilliant 89 runs off just 45 deliveries while Michael Van Lingen chipped in with 30 runs from 20 balls.
In other matches played yesterday, Kenya beat Rwanda by 17 runs while Uganda thumped Tanzania by eight wickets.
After the dismal display yesterday, Raza and his men have less than 24 hours to dust themselves up and find their form as they return to action today to face Tanzania at the United Cricket Ground in Windhoek. The match starts at 2.30pm.
Chronicle
