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Zim brace for ‘final’

Sport
THE Zimbabwe national cricket team is bracing its self for perfection when they tackle United Arab Emirates in their crucial and final Super Six match of the International Cricket Council World Cup qualifier at the Harare Sports Club tomorrow.

THE Zimbabwe national cricket team is bracing its self for perfection when they tackle United Arab Emirates in their crucial and final Super Six match of the International Cricket Council World Cup qualifier at the Harare Sports Club tomorrow.

by KEVIN MAPASURE

While Zimbabwe will be seeking a win that will qualify them to the final of the tournament which will be played at the same venue on Sunday, batsman Brendan Taylor (pictured) described tomorrow’s match as a final.

There could be a small window of Zimbabwe qualifying even after defeat tomorrow depending on other results in other matches, but they want to assure themselves a place in England and Wales next year with a win tomorrow.

Taylor, who scored a century in the defeat to the Windies on Monday, said that as long as Zimbabwe play their best game, they will be able to account for the United Araba Emirates scalp.

“We know the importance of Thursday’s match against UAE, which is a side that is certainly developing. They’ve got some pretty handy players as well and they will be keen to make a statement. For us, it’s basically a final. We need to win that.

It’s pretty clear-cut for us. We know what we have to do,” said Taylor after the defeat.We can’t worry about them. We have to worry about what we do on Thursday. If we do that well, we win. That’s your final. It’s clear-cut,” he said.

He added that they will not be taking their opponents, who have lost both the matches they have played in the Super Six, lightly. “We are not taking anybody for granted, we are just looking forward to another big performance on Thursday and we are well motivated for it and we are not leaving anything to chance.”

Taylor wants to see the team minimise leakages in the field as well as an improvement in the batting.

“We need to be sharper than we were against Windies. I think there were a couple of soft dismissals, our spinners weren’t probably as good as they have been in the past in this tournament, and certainly not backed up by our fielding. That’s what let us down but we grafted hard and we felt we had a good total there. Unfortunately, I don’t think we were sharp enough in the field today to try and restrict them.”

Opening batsmen Solomon Mire who was struck by a ball somewhere between the nose and the right eye had improved by yesterday and is expected back in full training today.

Mire went through scans and was cleared of any fracture or internal bleeding and by yesterday the swelling had gone down while his vision, which was blurred on Monday was also clearing.

Mire was struck while on 22, retired hurt before he returned towards the end of the innings to add 23 more runs for Zimbabwe.