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NewsDay

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Zim 0-5 B’desh…and its not over yet

Sport
THE Zimbabwe national cricket team’s misery continued after they were thrashed by eight wickets in the first of three T-20s at Harare Sports Club yesterday.

BY Kevin Mapasure

THE Zimbabwe national cricket team’s misery continued after they were thrashed by eight wickets in the first of three T-20s at Harare Sports Club yesterday.

The defeat follows a whitewash defeat in the one-day international (ODI) series as well as the heavy loss in the one-off Test.

Bangladesh are threatening to make a tour clean sweep with the second T20 set for today at the same venue.

Pressure is mounting on Zimbabwe’s technical team led by Lalchand Rajaput with the team suffering one defeat after the other with little sign of improvement from one match to the next even when playing on home soil.

Yesterday, Zimbabwe started off like a house on fire after winning the toss as they raced to 91 for 2 after 10 overs looking well set for a big total.

But what followed after the first 10 overs summed up what has been a miserable outing by the team across all formats in this tour.

They collapsed from 91 for 2 to 152 all out in 19 overs setting Bangladesh a winning target of 153 in 20 overs.

The tourists used up 18.2 overs to reach the target as Mohammad Naim (60) and Soumya Sakar (50) each made a half ton.

For Zimbabwe, Regis Chakabva made 43 runs off 22 balls, while Dion Myers had 35 after using up the same amount of balls.

The difference between Zimbabwe and Bangladesh was how the latter’s batsmen managed to convert after getting good starts.

Opener Wessley Madhevere (23) and Luke Jongwe (18) were the only other batsmen to reach double figures for Zimbabwe.

It was a big disappointment for local cricket fans who took to social media to vent their  anger as they watched the team’s batsmen file to the Pavillion one after the other with heads dropped.

Mustafizur Raham (3 for 31), Mohammad Saifuddin (2 for 23) and Shoriful Islam (2 for 17) were responsible for limiting Zimbabwe to the low score.

Bangladesh batted steadily  and never looked in any hurry to run down their target as they lost two wickets.

To put Zimbabwe’s collapse into context, Bangladesh had 76 runs on the board after 10 overs compared to Zimbabwe’s 92.

With the ball, Zimbabwe created a handful of chances and probably  should have bagged a couple of wickets via run outs.

They go back onto the field today hoping to keep the series alive and make the tour result less embarrassing.

A clean sweep for Bangladesh in all formats would probably be Zimbabwe’s lowest point over the last few years.

The last two matches in this series will be of importance.

Follow Kevin on Twitter @KevinMapasure