daniel chigunwe
Eddie Chikamhi
Senior Sports Reporter
THE Chevrons are in danger of suffering another series whitewash when they face Afghanistan in the last match of the T20I series at Harare Sports Club this afternoon.
Zimbabwe need consolation after they surrendered the three-match T20I series with a game to spare.
They trail the visitors 0-2.
In fact, the last few days have been difficult for the Zimbabwe national cricket team and their legion of fans due to lack of results.
The fans have been made to endure defeat after defeat at home and nothing has been going Zimbabwe’s way during the series against Afghanistan which ends today at Harare Sports Club.
The Chevrons have been dominated completely by the visitors Afghanistan who claimed a deserved 3-0 win in the One Day International series.
The series had so much at stake since the ODI matches were part of the ICC World Cup Super League where Zimbabwe remain at the basement side of the 13-team table, and as good as out of contention for the automatic qualification berth to next year’s ICC World Cup to be held in India.
The poor fortunes have followed them to the shortest version of the game where they trail the three-match series 0-2.
This coming less than a month after they became the first Full Member to lose a series against Namibia in the disastrous T20I series held in Bulawayo makes the whole chapter sad as Zimbabwe have been using both series as part of the final preparations for the ICC Men’s T20 World Cup Qualifier B 2022 which they host next month.
The Qualifier is one of two global tournaments that form the final stage of the qualification process for the ICC Men’s T20 World Cup 2022 to be staged in Australia.
This makes winning the last T20 against Afghanistan today the ideal consolation since the team is not likely to play any international between now and the Qualifier.
For Afghanistan, however, this is nothing more of a dead rubber. They have nothing more to play for except to consolidate points in the ICC Rankings where they occupy tenth place while Zimbabwe are two rungs below.
But the Chevrons’ poor showing in the recent ODI series cost the team one place in the ICC rankings released at the weekend as they are now in 16th place, after being overtaken yet again by one of the rising Associate Members, Oman.
Online Reporter