Chevrons out to level T20I series

Sports Reporter

THE Chevrons captain, Sikandar Raza, is optimistic his charges have learnt from the mistakes in the opening T20I against Bangladesh on Friday and will come out a better side as they seek to level the five-match series.

The two sides clash in the second T20I of the five-match series today.

After an eight-wicket defeat in the opening match on Friday, the Chevrons’ skipper admitted that the team suffers from poor starts during tours, but remains confident that they will bounce back to level the series.

“We are not really proud of the fact that we don’t start our tours well, but we will try and make things right and then come back better,” he said.

After watching a collapse of the batting line-up in the opening 10 overs, in which the four senior players — Craig Ervine, Ryan Burl, Sean Williams and Raza himself — were dismissed for ducks, the Chevrons skipper is hoping the team will learn from the mistakes that led to their cheap and easy wickets.

“I think it is the responsibility of everyone, inasmuch as the senior guys would take the blame, and we all have to put our hands up that we got it wrong,” said Raza.

“The majority of the senior guys, on whom the batting relies, unfortunately did not come to the party and we will take those harsh lessons. It’s just one game.

“The beauty of this team is when we get it right, we get it right, and everybody does their part, but unfortunately today (Friday), there were a lot of guys missing.”

With an eight-wicket partnership of Clive Madande and Wellington Masakadza pushing Zimbabwe to 124 runs all-out in 20 overs, Raza feels that the deep batting order should put more of such partnerships.

“We are batting up to eight now with Luke Jongwe and there are a lot of good performances that can come from the guys,” he said.

“We have done it in the past and all we need is maybe four or five guys every game to have that good partnership and good runs on the belt so we can end up on 180-190.”

Having dropped three clear-cut catches in the first T20I match on Friday, Raza believes the team needs to have more practice and matches under floodlights to be prepared for the situations.

“We have got floodlights at the Harare Sports Club, so we need to do practices under the light. We need to get used to playing under the lights but, unfortunately, we don’t get much of that. Those three dropped catches hurt us a lot,” he said.