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Chevrons hammered again

Sport
Australia 229 for 2 (Finch 172, Short 46) beat Zimbabwe 129 for 9 (Tye 3-12, Agar 2-16) by 100 runs The Zimbabwe national cricket team were subjected to Aaron Finch's brutality after the Australian opening batsmen and captain plundered 172 runs at Harare Sports Club to set up a 100 run win during the second match of their T-20 series that also involves Pakistan.

Australia 229 for 2 (Finch 172, Short 46) beat Zimbabwe 129 for 9 (Tye 3-12, Agar 2-16) by 100 runs The Zimbabwe national cricket team were subjected to Aaron Finch’s brutality after the Australian opening batsmen and captain plundered 172 runs at Harare Sports Club to set up a 100 run win during the second match of their T-20 series that also involves Pakistan.

BY Kevin Mapasure

After they were sent in to bat Australia got off to a blistering start and never abated as Finch attacked every delivery with the intent of either a six or a boundary.

The Zimbabwe bowlers that include among others John Nyumbu and Chris Mpofu, who had replaced Kyle Jarvis from the first match, struggled to contain Finch with D’Arcy Short giving his captain the strike at every opportunity. In the end, Zimbabwe used seven bowlers and none will be too impressed with their numbers from this one. In the first power play, Australia hit 75 runs with Finch racing to his half century in 22 balls.

His 100 consumed just 50 balls, while his century and half came off 69 deliveries. All in all, he hit the rope 16 times and cleared it on 10 occasions.

He then fell three runs short of Chris Gayle’s world record, but he was very proud of his effort.

At the other end, Short was dismissed caught Peter Moor off Blessing Muzarabani for 46. The work was well cut out for Hamilton Masakadza’s men and with such a mammoth target on the board, it was about them trying to get as near as possible to earn some confidence going into today’s match against Pakistan.

They did start off well with Solomon Mire and Chamu Chibhabha batting with intent and purpose.

But once the wicket of Chibhabha fell with 42 runs on the board, there was no recovery. Chibhabha and Mire made 22 and 28 respectively. Moor had the third biggest scored for the hosts with 19.

There were so many starts for the Zimbabwean batsmen, but they lacked conversion. Tarisai Musakanda only made 10 yesterday after doing well to fall narrowly sort of a half ton in the first match. Andrew Tye took three wickets for Australia while Ashton Agar had two. Australia have picked eight points for far with Pakistan on four while Zimbabwe anchor the log without a point.

“Fans are a little bit angry at the moment. We just have to try and win them back,” More said. “The current set up is that we are getting the starts and then we fail to cash in. Our game plan was to try and nullify them with our spin, but we didn’t get what we expected.” Zimbabwe will be looking to stay in the series with a win over Pakistan this morning.