Chronicle Editor
Mehluli Sibanda, Senior Sports Reporter
CRICKET Ireland on Thursday announced a new fixture schedule for Zimbabwe senior men’s limited overs tour of the European country which was postponed a fortnight ago.
The original dates of the three One Day International and five Twenty20 Internationals were rescheduled when Cricket Ireland received advice government and health authorities around quarantining requirements meant that the series could not go ahead as originally planned.
Main changes in the new schedule , apart from playing dates is that two of the T20I will now be played at Clontarf, and the T20 International series will now be played prior to the World Cup Super League One-Day Internationals, effectively flipping the playing schedule.
Cricket Ireland also announced that as part of the broader schedule, the Ireland Wolves will play a Zimbabwe XI in a 50-over match on 6 September leading into the ODI series.
The T20Is are talking place on 27, 29 August, 1, 2 and 4 September. Dates for the three ICC Super League ODIs are 8, 10 and 13 September.
Richard Holdsworth, high performance director for Cricket Ireland, said:“We would like to thank the numerous host venues for working with us on the rescheduling of this series so quickly, and look forward to welcoming the Zimbabwean team to our shores once more for what will be a highly competitive series.”
Holdsworth further stated , “In order to meet quarantining requirements in both jurisdictions, the visiting side will spend the first 10 days of their tour training and playing in the Republic under bio-secure protocols, then the two sides can then move to Northern Ireland to complete the series. As a consequence of this change, we have had to flip the order of the T20I and ODI series, and we will see the return of international cricket at Clontarf for the first time since May 2019.”
Ireland coach, Graham Ford pointed to the fact that Zimbabwe have been playing some good cricket of late with some Zimbabwean players in fine form.
“Zimbabwe have played excellent cricket recently and have a lot of players in good form at the moment, however once again we will go into the series looking to improve in all departments and not over-complicating things,’’ said Ford.
With senior players, Sean Williams and Craig Ervine expected to be back for the trip to Ireland, Zimbabwe will look to build on the impressive show against Bangladesh at home. Against the Tigers, the Chevrons did play some good cricket in the limited overs formats but lost the ODIs 3-0 and the T20Is 2-1._@Mdawini_29
Bongani Ndlovu