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Tadious Manyepo in CAPE TOWN, South Africa
ZIMBABWE national senior netball team, the Gems opened their World Cup campaign on a bad note after losing 86-30 to Australia at the Cape Town International Convention Centre this afternoon.
The Gems were looking to cause a major upset in their first match in Pool A by beating the Diamonds, who are ranked first in the world.
But the Ropafadzo Mutsauki girls found the going tough losing by an even bigger margin than the previous score of 73-37 they suffered in their first World Cup meeting in England four years ago.
In today’s match, the Gems looked physically strong but fell short in most aspects of their game including passing precision and general technique on the ball.
Once they lost the first centre pass to allow Australia to hit the ground running, there was no way back as they trailed 20-11 in the opening quarter while falling further down to 41-18 at half time.
They clearly lacked the endurance to really contain the Australians who stretched their advantage to 62-24 in the third quarter.
With Mutsauki giving most of the World Cup debutants a run, Zimbabwe did have some good moments which were largely cheered by hundreds of supporters who rooted for them.
It’s a game that Mutsauki would take as a learning curve going into their match against Fiji tomorrow.
Tonga beat Fiji 56-51 in the other Pool A match played early today.
And for the Gems, it’s back to the drawing table to reorganise for the must-win Fiji match coming at 9am tomorrow.
Online Reporter