Online Reporter
Eddie Chikamhi
Zimpapers Sports Hub
IN about 10 days’ time, the Zimbabwe cricket team will plunge into battle at the ICC Men’s T20 World Cup in India and Sri Lanka where coach Justin Sammons has set the bar higher by aiming for a Super Eight Berth.
Despite the perennial disappointments they have experienced over the years, Sammons has remained optimistic of his team’s chances in 2026.
“Obviously, our main focus is to qualify for the Super Eights and it’s going to come down to us winning the key moments in games and being aware and alert to that.
“But certainly, our goal is to get through the group stage into that Super Eight phase of the competition,” said Sammons.
The South African expat coach is banking on his squad led by skipper Sikandar Raza, who made the team of the tournament the last time Zimbabwe participated in 2022.
The all-rounder has also been in fine form at the SA20 which ended in South Africa at the weekend.
Sammons has also included in the squad experienced players such as Ryan Burl, Wellington Masakadza, Richard Ngarava, Bradley Evans, Blessing Muzarabani and the duo of former captains Brendan Taylor and Graeme Cremer, who recently returned from retirement.
These will be complemented by a host of young guns like Brian Bennett, Tinotenda Maposa, Tadiwanashe Marumani, Tashinga Musekiwa, and Dion Myers.
This team played lots of cricket in the last 12 months and Sammons believes this experience will count in their favour.
They engaged the likes of Ireland, South Africa, New Zealand, Namibia, Afghanistan and Sri Lanka, apart from hosting the Africa World T20 Qualifier. This kind of exposure gave Sammons and his team the platform to work on their game.
“2025 was excellent in terms of the amount of cricket that we played and who we played it against, I think was more important,” he said.
“The fact that we played strong opposition sort of month in, month out was really good. I think it really allowed us to see where we were at from a skills level point of view and realise what needs to be done to sort of lift our standard because it does need to be lifted.
“And so, yeah, it gave us that understanding of what’s needed and now it’s a process of implementing that.
“It’s not going to happen overnight, it takes time, but soon the guys have bought into what’s needed to get to the standard that we know we need to get to. So, 2025 was really important in terms of that.
“Obviously moving into this competition, again we understand the standards that we need to sort of deliver, the skill set that we need to deliver under pressure as well.
“So, I think it does boil down to, you know, are we able to execute our skills under pressure during this tournament.”
Zimbabwe are expected to continue with their training camp in the Sri Lankan port city of Hambantota until the weekend and will relocate to the capital Colombo for the start of their group games.
They are scheduled to play a pre-tournament warm-up game against Netherlands next Tuesday.
The tournament will start on February 7 with the opening match featuring Netherlands and Pakistan at SSC Cricket Ground.
Mathew Masinge