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Ray Bande
Senior Reporter
DANGAMVURA-BORN and bred Chevrons player, Tendai ‘TC’ Chatara believes the numerous spinning options at their disposal will see them through as Zimbabwe gets down to the Super Six stage of the ongoing International Cricket Council (ICC) Men’s Cricket World Cup Qualifier 2023 at Queens Sports Club in Bulawayo.
Zimbabwe opened their Super Six stage account yesterday (Thursday) with a date against Oman and look ahead to face Sri Lanka on Sunday, before wrapping up their campaign to qualify for the global cricket showpiece against Netherlands next week.
Zimbabwe sealed their place in the Super Six stage with a perfect record after beating West Indies by 35 runs in a Group A blockbuster match played in front of a Harare Sports Club packed to the rafters last week on Saturday.
It was a wonderful treat for Zimbabwe fans packed into Harare Sports Club, with many diverted to watch on the big screen at the adjacent rugby club when the venue reached capacity by 11am.
It was a sweet tale of records being broken for the Chevrons with a brilliant innings of 174 by Sean Williams, off only 101 balls being the highlight of Zimbabwe’s biggest-ever one-day international victory when they crushed United States of America by 304 runs in their final ICC Men’s Cricket World Cup Qualifier 2023 Group A match at Harare Sports Club on Monday.
Against West Indies, it was Chatara who put the icing on the cake when the Windies were left with a heavy burden on Chase, as the only recognised batter left, but two runs later Chatara picked up his wicket, as he tried to cut a delivery and dragged it on to his stumps after scoring a valiant 44.
The soft spoken Mountaineers player is now concentrating on the task ahead and thinks the team needs to win all the three matches against Oman, Sri Lanka and Netherlands, although he remains mindful of the fact that winning just two will see them through.
“Things are good for us at the moment because everyone is putting in something. It is team work. We have that collective team effort with the bowlers and the batters coming to the party, which makes us a very good side.
“I think in Bulawayo, our chances are very high because of the many spinning options that we have. We all know that in Bulawayo, the spin will play a pivotal role and we have many options in the respect, given the presence of captain, Sean Williams, Sikhandar Raza, Wesley Madhevere and Ryan Burl, just to mention a few.
“We are looking forward to winning all the three matches that we will play in the Super Six stage. We are geared to winning them all even though we know that winning two of them will take us through,” said Chatara.
He saluted the fans who rallied them on in Harare and expressed hope that the same atmosphere will prevail in Bulawayo.
The support we had in Harare was just awesome. It was massive and I have no doubt that we will have the same environment in Bulawayo.
We just hope friends of the game of cricket in Bulawayo will come in their numbers to help us accomplish what is set before us,” said Chatara.
Zimbabwe has been in an unforgiving form since the start of this World Cup qualifying campaign.
A brilliant record-breaking century from Raza was the highlight of a superb victory by Zimbabwe over Netherlands by a margin of six wickets.
After claiming a four-wicket haul that helped restrict the Dutch to a total of 315, Raza went on to score the fastest ever ODI hundred by a Zimbabwe batter, finishing unbeaten on 102 off 54 deliveries, as the hosts chased down the target with ease.
Zimbabwe’s victory by 304 runs over USA is the second biggest win by runs in men’s ODI cricket.
They also became the first side to bring up a score of 400-plus in the ICC Men’s Cricket World Cup Qualifier, having bettered their previous biggest total of 380 against Nepal in 2018.
Also, Zimbabwe have become the seventh country in history to record a score of over 400, joining the elite list of India, Australia, South Africa, England, Sri Lanka and New Zealand.
Online Reporter