ZIMBABWE’S T20I captain, Sikandar Raza, marked his 300th international appearance and a personal milestone of 100 T20I wickets in spectacular fashion, leading his team to a resounding 67-run victory over Sri Lanka on Thursday night in Rawalpindi, Pakistan.
The win, Zimbabwe’s largest T20I triumph against a full-member nation by runs, saw Raza bag the Player of the Match award for his stellar all-round performance.
It was a record extending 19th Man of the Match accolade in the format of the game.
Raza became the second Zimbabwean to reach that milestone after Richard Ngarava.
Reflecting on his achievement of becoming only the second Zimbabwean to reach 100 T20I wickets, Raza stressed that the personal accolade was secondary to the team’s success.
“The achievement was made even more special because Zimbabwe won,” he stated emphatically in his post-match Press conference.
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“All these accolades that come our way, they only matter when Zimbabwe won.”
The captain used the victory to highlight the evolving team culture, which focuses on celebrating smaller, significant contributions.
“The culture we’re trying to change in the changing room and celebrating those smaller things rather than the bigger things,” he explained.
He singled out individual moments of brilliance, saying: “I want to celebrate the fact that Zimbabwe is averaging 37 as an opening stand at a decent strike rate, that’s something I want to celebrate.
“Musekiwa came and he hit that brilliant six... Ryan Burl came, his third ball was a six.
“These are the small things that I celebrate and if you win the game, that of course we enjoy together but for me these are the better things.”
Speaking on the team’s growing confidence and “mental toughness”, Raza attributed it to rigorous preparation.
“The belief comes with training. We have been very sort of hard in our training,” he said, noting that in the past, a lack of “mental toughness” was an issue.
He pointed to a history of taking top teams close: “If you look at it, a lot of the games Zimbabwe has played this year, we have taken most of the teams to the wire... every time, most of the times we have lost, we have given the opposition a great fight.”
The captain saw the clinical win — which saw Sri Lanka bowled out for 95 — as a reward for their sustained effort.
“Because we have worked hard... those sort of things add up and today is a great testament of all the hard work we’ve been doing in the past as well. I thought today we were really clinical.”
With the historic win, Raza said he couldn’t be “any more grateful that being my 300th international match for Zimbabwe I managed to get a win... and I managed to get 100 wickets so the victory has been made sweeter.”
Zimbabwe now look to carry this momentum into their next match against the hosts, Pakistan, tomorrow.