ZIMBABWE Cricket head coach Justin Sammons has urged his charges to fight from all cylinders and forget about history as they take on Australia in their second match of the ICC Men’s T20 World Cup at Premadasa Stadium in Colombo tomorrow.
The Chevrons toppled Aussies at the inaugural T20 World Cup played in South Africa in 2007.
The locals chased down Australia’s 138/9, reaching 139/5 on the penultimate ball of the match to register a famous five-wicket win.
Brendan Taylor scored an unbeaten 60 in the match, while Elton Chigumbura picked three wickets, Gary Brent took two, and Hamilton Masakadza took one.
While that may bring comfort and hope, the head coach wants execution on the day, which is what he believes gives the team a more realistic chance than digging into the history books.
“Yeah, so again, I said it before the Oman game, it’s going to come down to the execution of our skills. We’ll have our plans in place, obviously we’ll do our homework on our opposition, take conditions into consideration, and then the plans will be formulated,” Sammons told NewsDay Sport after yesterday’s training session at SSC.
“But at the end of the day, we’ve got to execute, and that’s what it will boil down to — are we able to execute our skills? And I thought we were superb against Oman. Yeah, guys were on it from an execution point of view.”
Zimbabwe thumped Oman by eight wickets in their opening Group C match played at the Singhalese Sports Club on Monday.
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That victory was built upon seamers Blessing Muzarabani, Richard Ngarava and Brad Evans, who took three wickets each, and batsmen Brian Bennett’s unbeaten 48, Taylor’s 31, and Tadiwanashe Marumani’s 21.
However, Sammons remains cautious in his approach.
“Yeah, look, we can’t get ahead of ourselves, I think that’s important.
“You can't, you know, there’s a long, long way to go in this tournament, in this group stage, so certainly we can't get ahead of ourselves.
“It ultimately is about one ball at a time at the end of the day, you know, you don’t want to think too far ahead, you don’t want to look what’s in the past, obviously we take confidence from the past, but it comes down to what we do in the moment, one ball at a time.”
His message to the players is simple — he wants them to play with freedom.
“Yeah, to the players, go and express themselves, I think it’s a great opportunity against, you know, one of the world’s best teams, the team that probably has had the most success in World Cups,” Sammons added.
“So it’s an opportunity to go and show the world, the opposition, and themselves what they’re about, and I want them to do that, I want them to go have fun, enjoy it, enjoy the experience, and just, yeah, go express themselves as much as they can.”
Taylor retired hurt in the match against Oman, and it’s not yet clear whether he will be able to line up against Australia.
“Yeah, so we’re waiting for confirmation from a scan that he went for, so, once we get that confirmation back, we’ll know what’s going to be happening moving forward,” he said.
