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WE didn’t expect the Chevrons to win the recently-ended T20I series against India at Harare Sports Club.
The world champions are a very powerful side in cricket and have consistently sat at the top of the tree when it comes to this game.
They have just won the ICC T20 World Cup and have a battery of top players who can walk easily into any other national team.
Think about the best national teams in the world — Australia, England and New Zealand — and thousands of Indian cricketers can easily walk into those teams.
That is the kind of depth that the Indians have, when it comes to cricket, and even though most of the players, who won them the World Cup did not come for this tour, we knew that whoever the Indians threw into battle would still be competitive.
Shivam Dube, who played in all matches at the World Cup for India, Sanju Samson and Yashasvi Jaswal, who were also part of the World Cup team, arrived in Zimbabwe ahead of the third match in the T20I series.
Shubman Gill, who captained the team during this tour, is considered one of the best batters, in all formats of the game, in the world and one of those who are billed to lead the way for India post the Virat Kohli, Rohit Sharma and Ravindra Jadeja era.
That is serious quality and we expected that the Indians would be too good for our lads.
However, what we expected was that our Chevrons would compete against the Indians and when they successfully defended a very low total, to win the first T20I, they charmed not only us but the whole world.
The headlines were beautiful as the world feasted on the glory of a heavyweight being brought down by a lightweight.
However, the Indians quickly got their act together and they were worthy winners after their 4-1 series win.
Despite the huge margin of defeat, we believe it was a fair start for Justin Sammons in his new role as the head coach of the Chevrons.
This was his first assignment as the head coach and we did not expect any miracles, given the quality of the opposition.
It provided him with a chance to have a deep assessment of his squad and we believe he now has a good idea of the strengths and weaknesses of his players.
We hired him because we wanted a change in the identity of the man who was leading the Chevrons.
Our results as a team have not been that good, in recent months, and failing to qualify for the ICC T20I World Cup, after losing to Namibia and Uganda, was a very low point.
Sammons knows there is a lot of work that still needs to be done if the team is to improve.
And, he conceded that after the last match on Sunday.
The work, for him and his team, starts now.
Online Reporter