adminZIMBABWE women’s national cricket team coach Trevor Phiri has attributed the team’s failure to qualify for International Cricket Council World Twenty20 which will be staged in India next year to lack of experience.
The Zimbabwean women side which is captained by Chipo Mugeri finished third at the eight-team qualifiers held in Bangkok, Thailand from 28 November to 5 December.
The women suffered two defeats in the five matches they played at the qualifiers but the costly loss was suffered at the hands of Bangladesh in the semi-finals which saw them bow out of contention for a final berth for T20 finals set for India.
Zimbabwe had done well to finish second in their group matches in which they lost to Ireland, but won against China and Netherlands. They, however, missed out on a place to India early next year because only the two finalists got that privilege.
Ireland defeated Bangladesh by two wickets in the finals of the qualifiers.
Phiri noted that while they played well in their group matches, their batsmen let them down in the crucial semi-final encounter against Bangladesh.
The bowlers had done a good job in restricting Bangladesh to 98 runs in 20 overs, Zimbabwe were bowled out for 58 runs to lose the match by 31 runs.
“We played well in the group stages; we then met Bangladesh in the semi-finals. We knew the batters were not exposed because the warm up matches were against South African franchises.
“The batting let us down, we tried all sorts of strategies to shuffle around our batting order to counter their spin,’’ said Phiri.
Skipper Mugeri tried her best with the bat and finished the tournament as the fourth highest run scorer with 120 runs from five innings, scored at an average of 40 with a best score of 51 not out.
Mugeri won the player of the match twice, first against China when she took one wicket and went on to score 51 runs not out, her second accolade came in the third place playoff when Scotland were the opposition when she scored an unbeaten 47 runs having taken two wickets.
Precious Marange also won a player of the match award for her 24 runs not out in Zimbabwe’s two run triumph over Netherlands.
On future plans for his team, Phiri said they were likely to invite Bangladesh tour Zimbabwe early next year as part of their preparations for India.
Online Reporter
Bongani Ndlovu