Online Reporter
Brandon Moyo, Zimpapers Sports Hub
FOLLOWING the conclusion of their six match white ball series against the United Arab Emirates (UAE) at Queens Sports Club in Bulawayo on Monday, Zimbabwe women’s cricket coach Walter Chawaguta says his team now has a clear picture of what needs improvement before next year’s global qualifiers.
The Lady Chevrons drew the four match One Day International (ODI) series 2–2 but lost the two match T20I series 2–0.
Chawaguta admitted that poor decision making and inexperience under pressure played a major part in their T20I defeats.
“Poor decision making is a combination of things, it’s a combination of experience and just not being able to handle pressure. When you are under pressure, unfortunately, at times, if you are not tough and accustomed to being in that pressure situation, you always go for a wrong decision.
That is what probably happened to some of our players. More often than not for me, it’s just a question of making the wrong decision.
“It comes with experience and unfortunately we lost some of our experienced players due to injury. Our captain didn’t play a single match in the series and she would have made a difference. Some of our top order batters were struggling for form, that doesn’t help because it means that you are struggling in the powerplay and the pressure just goes right down to the middle order and to the end,” said Chawaguta.
Despite the challenges, he was encouraged by the form of a few returning players.
“We have work to do and we know what we need to fix ahead of the qualifiers. There have been some good performances. Lory Phiri, who has been out of the team, has come back and scored some runs. She showed what she can do.
It’s good to see Josephine Nkomo as well being amongst the runs. We have been clamouring for her to score in the middle order. Unfortunately, at the top we have not been able to string together good partnerships,” said Chawaguta.
The series came soon after the Lady Chevrons’ victory at the ICC Women’s T20 World Cup Africa Qualifier in Namibia last month, which booked their place in the ICC Women’s T20 World Cup Global Qualifier 2026 to be held in Nepal early next year. That tournament will determine the final entrants to the World Cup.
Chawaguta said the team must sharpen its response to pressure situations before those challenges.
“We are inexperienced when it comes to one day cricket. The most experienced players have played about 18 to 20 one day matches, so that speaks volumes.
For the T20Is, especially coming from the context of the Africa Qualifiers, we always knew they were not going to really present a massive challenge for us, so we wanted to see whether we would be able to rise up to the next level in terms of dealing with pressure.
“This has just shown that we need to work as a team on how we handle pressure in different phases, whether with bat or ball. We have been exposed in that area and we need to fix it. Fortunately, we have time between now and the Qualifiers to remedy that and a few tours to try out new things before then,” said Chawaguta.— @brandon_malvin
