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Eddie Chikamhi
Senior Sports Reporter
THE jostling for places in the final cricket squad to represent Zimbabwe in Sri Lanka is set to go a notch higher today in the second preparatory game at Harare Sports Club.
Selectors have picked 28 players for the preparations which begun in Harare on Monday. The training squad is set to be slashed by half, by the time the team leaves for Asia this Sunday.
The Chevrons are scheduled to play Sri Lanka in three one-day international matches that are part of the ICC Men’s Cricket World Cup Super League.
All three games will be day-night affairs scheduled for 16, 18 and 21 January 2022 at the Pallekele International Cricket Stadium in Kandy.
The 13-team Super League competition is important as it serves as the main route for qualification for the 2023 edition of the ICC Men’s Cricket World Cup to be staged in India.
Zimbabwe currently sit second from bottom after playing nine games and are desperate for points ahead of a busy schedule this year.
As part of the preparations the Zimbabwe selectors have divided the training squad into two select sides, namely Southerns and Northerns.
The sides are set to play a total of three games before the squad is trimmed by the end of the week.
Northerns won the first match by five wickets, via the Duckworth-Lewis method on Monday. Blessing Muzarabani’s five-wicket haul saw Southerns dismissed for 113 runs.
Northerns captain Regis Chakabva had won the toss and elected to bowl. Takudzwanashe Kaitano and Innocent Kaia opened the innings for Southerns, facing the bowling of Tendai Chatara and Muzarabani.
Chatara took the first wicket by trapping Kaia lbw for five, with the score at 10.
Craig Ervine, captaining the Southerns team, joined Kaitano and all looked well for them as they took the score to 35 in the eighth over.
But Muzarabani had Ervine caught at the wicket by Chakabva for 15. The dismissal started a disastrous middle-order collapse.
Muzaranabi then removed Wessly Madhevere lbw after facing two balls, without scoring. In his next over it was Kaitano’s turn, as he too edged a ball to Chakabva for 16.
Tino Mutombodzi hit his first ball for four, but off his second he was out caught by Ryan Burl and it was 49 for five.
Worse was to come, as Donald Tiripano, who had replaced Chatara, caught and bowled Clive Madande and then bowled Luke Jongwe second ball, both without scoring.
Southerns were reeling at 58 for seven wickets in the 13th over. But Sikandar Raza and Wellington Masakadza put together a fighting partnership of 52 runs, which almost doubled the score, in 14 overs.
The wheels came off for the final time, as the leg-spinner Burl broke the stand by having Masakadza caught by Tiripano for 26.
Raza followed in the next over after 36 runs off 56 balls, as Muzarabani returned to claim another wicket.
Muzarabani finished with the outstanding figures for five wickets for 21 in seven overs, while there were two wickets each for Tiripano and Burl.
The target was revised to 113 in 48 overs after some rains.
Northerns began their innings with Kevin Kasuza and Chakabva making a steady start against the opening bowling of Ngarava and Chivanga.
They were doing well with 43 on the board when Kasuza, who had been playing very quietly, was caught by Mutombodzi off Ngarava for nine.
In his next over Ngarava inflicted the same mode of dismissal on Chakabva, who had made 27.
Northerns began to look rather shaky, as Timycen Maruma was caught at the wicket by Madande off Jongwe without scoring.
Online Reporter