Online Reporter
Online Reporter
ZIMBABWE senior men’s national cricket team all rounder, Ryan Burl is confident that the Chevrons will be able to surprise favourites, India, with their bowling variety when the two sides face off in a Super Eight encounter at the ICC Men’s T20 Cricket World Cup in Chennai, later today.
Burl, who is 57 runs away from 2 000 T20I runs, said the depth in their bowling attack is likely to give them then edge over the tournament co-hosts.
This will be the first T20I between Zimbabwe and India in India.
“We’ve obviously got a lot of options and that’s probably one of the advantages of the Zimbabwe line-ups. We’ve got a left-arm seamer, a right-arm seamer, we’ve got a couple of leg spinners, we’ve got an off spinner, we’ve got a left-arm offie.
“So, we do have quite a lot of depth and I think it will probably just come down to what are the match-ups depending on the batters that are out there at the time and obviously the combinations that we do look to go for,” said Burl (via ESPNCricinfo).
The all rounder was also full of praise for Blessing Muzarabani. The lanky fast bowler is the tournament’s second leading wicket taker with 11 scalps to his name, only behind the USA’s Shadley van Schalkwyk who has 13.
“I mean being 6 foot 9 [inches] does help. I have to give a lot more credit to Blessing than he has received because he’s been out for about four to six months prior to this tournament [with a back injury]. He obviously had a lot of doubts coming in with his own body and how he was feeling and stuff like that. The success that he has had with the ball has been amazing.
“It’s not something that has only just come about now. He has been doing this in international cricket previously. He’s obviously someone that we’re really happy having in our squad. He’s one of those bowlers that’s obviously 6’9”, and he does kind of come a little bit from beyond the perpendicular. So, jagging the ball back into the righties and across the lefties with that steep bounce does propose quite a lot of a challenge for the batters. So, I’m a lot happier knowing that he’s on my team and not on the opposition,” said Burl.
He added that Burl exposure to playing against top oppositions in recent times has contributed to Zimbabwe’s success in this T20 World Cup.
“I think obviously playing high-quality opponents regularly, as well as having a very good bunch of players buying into what I would like to believe a good blueprint and a good process.
“But obviously, you still got to execute on the day. So, I think it’s a combination of everything put together and obviously now reaping the rewards,” he said.
Both Zimbabwe and India go into today’s encounter needing a win, having opened their Super Eighth campaigns with defeats against the West Indies and South Africa, respectively.
Going into the game, of all Full Member bowlers, Richard Ngarava and Jasprit Bumrah have bowled the joint most maidens in T20I history with 12 each while the Chevrons skipper, Sikandar Raza is 15 runs away from becoming the first Zimbabwean batter to reach 3 000 runs in T20Is.
