It was supposed to get better for the Zimbabwe national cricket team in their pursuit of a win against Pakistan yesterday, but somehow and everyone is still trying to figure out how, it got worse.
by Kevin Mapasure
Set a target of 260 to win after inserting the tourists in the first of three One day Internationals, Zimbabwe lost by more runs than they managed to score. The Elton Chigumbura-captained side fell 131 runs short of equaling Pakistan’s score as they gave their otherwise loyal fans more reasons to lose hope in seeing the glory days any time soon.
Sean Williams was named the Zimbabwe Hero and walked away with $500. Making money can be really easy at times.
What next for a team that has been feted so well in recent months, had so much time in camp and, most importantly, have been playing a lot of international cricket yet still failing to show any signs of improvement.
After getting so close to winning in Pakistan, expectation was that they would carry on from there. After stunning New Zealand in one of the ODIs nobody expected things could go down this fast, even by Zimbabwe’s standards.
A winning target of 260 on this sort of track would tempt fans to retain hope, but it soon all disappeared. The hosts cannot put together good performances in all three aspects of the game together, either they do two well and fail one or they get one right and fail the other two. The selectors rung some changes, the sidelining of Craig Ervine was injury induced, while the removal of Prosper Utseya was tactical and in came Brian Chari and Luke Jongwe.
The questions were whether the inclusion of Chari who was asked to partner Chamu Chibhabha to face the new ball would make any difference and whether the latter would restore his form in this format after struggling in the T-20s with the bat.
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The answer to both questions was no. On this tour so far, Chibhabha has been a shadow of the player he has been for Zimbabwe since they returned from the World Cup. Yesterday he managed just 12 from 27 before he was trapped leg by Imad Wasim as Pakistan made the breakthrough they needed in the ninth over after the openers had dug in.
From there everything took a nosedive, unbelievable to the fans as it unravelled in front of them with the game slipping away with each passing over and with each wicket tumbling.
Hope diminished at a rapid rate and before 30 overs had been bowled any hope or thought of winning this match had extinguished for the Zimbabweans. Chari was defiant at the beginning on his debut, but he perished for 16, Hamilton Masakadza and Sean Williams did not contribute much either although they got the starts with 26 and 19 respectively.
Richmond Mutumbami and Luke Jongwe scored three and zero summing up a disappointing day for Zimbabwe. Harare Sports Club was so silent in the afternoon one would have hardly believed there was an international cricket match going on from outside.
They failed to reach the 137 target in the T-20s and even in the 50 over format yesterday, they still fell short of that figure. Once again they had given their fans some hope with a decent bowling display that could have been excellent had they not dropped a few catches towards the end of the Pakistan innings. Tinashe Panyangara, Jongwe, John Nyumbu and Graeme Cremer each picked up a wicket as the visitors were limited to 259.
Zimbabwe started well with the ball taking three early wickets, but Pakistan recovered with Wasim hitting 61 of the same number of balls to ensure the task was not made easy in the hosts’ chase. The two team square off in the second ODI on Saturday and all hope is that Zimbabwe will at least provide some competition with a good weekend crowd expected.
