It’s time Zifa play ball, arrest the rot

lot to celebrate in any other sport. The Olympics were a big yawn. The Herald’s cricket correspondent, Jeffrey Murimbechi met up with Tinotenda Mawoyo, the Zimbabwe Test opening batsman, and a nominee for the ICC Emerging Cricketer of the Year award. He gives a personal insight on the possible outcome in Asia. Although Mawoyo is not part of the squad, he has personal experience as a batsman, who has played on all continents.
Jeffrey Murimbechi: As an opening batsman in the most challenging of cricket formats, you know what it takes to win or lose a match. What are Zimbabwe’s realistic chances at the World Cup?
Tino Mawoyo: I will take you back to the first T20 World Cup in South Africa where we beat Australia in the first round and only had to beat England to get through to the next round. Then I’ll take you back seven months ago to New Zealand where we played really competitive cricket in the two T20s and only losing the second one in the last over.
Two months ago we defeated South Africa and won the tournament.
It’s evident that we are an improving T20 outfit but we are not as best as we can be.
I think it is great for us to have Sri Lanka in the first round, with the warning shots that we fired of late they definitely will be ready for us and would not want embarrass themselves on home soil.
JM: You know our bowlers more intimately than your opponents do and know what it is like to face them. Judging from what you have experienced, what can you say about the youngsters Richard Muzhange and Brian Vitori?
TM: I will start off with Brian who’s just come off a really good season against Sri Lanka and South Africa A sides at home. Obviously he is quick and swings the ball back in but I am not so sure how much the ball will swing in Sri Lanka but then again it’s only twenty overs. He will probably bowl two upfront and then two more at the end.
I think he will have confidence after the couple of games he played here against the A sides, he just needs to take the confidence from that series to the World Cup.
Richard Muzhange in my opinion is the best T20 bowler.
I haven’t seen him play that much at international level but some of the comments I heard from Albie Morkel when he came here last time were that it was the best death bowling he has faced in four or five years. This is coming from a guy who plays in the IPL and the South African T20 side. So I guess he has the ability to do well, we just have to make sure he can rise to the occasion and do it.
JM: The wickets and conditions in Sri Lanka are different from what we have in Zimbabwe. Taking this into consideration, can we get past Sri Lanka and South Africa in the first round?
TM: It will definitely be more difficult to get past Sri Lanka in those conditions but let’s remember that South Africa also struggle with those conditions when it comes to the spinners and we’ve got three quality spinners in our side. As you noticed when South Africa was here we played as many spinners as we could and I think they (spinners) will get more purchase in Sri Lanka.
It will be a very good opportunity, South Africa will have their full strength side there and we have to make sure we are ready for them and take them head on.
JM: Zimbabwe is not really expected to bring back the World Cup, though it would be a welcome achievement. So what country in your view is likely to win the Cup?
TM: I put my money on Sri Lanka. I think they are a team that plays really well on home soil. They haven’t done so well against India of late but they rise to the occasion on home soil as they played very well in the 50-over World Cup last year. They have a side that is well balanced in this version of the game with batsmen that can attack and keep wickets at hand for the end and have a good knock.