adminButcher is returning home to England.
“For me, it was a good experience, I would have loved to have one more series with Zimbabwe away from home,” said Butcher.
The Zimbabwe cricket side returned home with their heads down following a largely unsuccessful tour of West Indies where they came out without a win in all formats of the game.
Last Friday’s crushing innings and 65-run defeat, in a Test that ended inside three days, just like they lopsided first encounter, meant that the Zimbabweans were whitewashed across all formats as they had also lost the T20 series 2-0 and the ODIs 3-0.
Butcher was quick to admit his charges were not in their best shape to take on the Caribbean islanders saying the only way Zimbabwe can improve was by getting more game time at a high level.
Having initially indicated he would fly straight to England from West Indies, the Englishman was part of the side that landed at the Harare International Airport shortly after lunch yesterday saying he was here to “sort one or two things”.
“It was a very disappointing tour not only for me but for the rest of the side as well. It would have been a more memorable and good outing had we won given that this was my last tour as Zimbabwe coach but it only came to show that we need more runs in the games we play. The only way we are going to get more runs is by making sure that the boys are exposed and get used to high levels of cricket.
“Of course, there were a few batsmen whom I feel did well, the likes of Malcom Waller, Craig Ervine and twice Hamilton Masakadza had half centuries but we do not have anyone as good as Chris Gayle and (Marlon) Samuels up our order.
“But we have to be realistic at the end of the day that the way most of the boys performed was reasonable given that this was our first full series in a long time and I was impressed by the likes of (right arm pace bowler) Kyle Jarvis and debutante (right arm fast–medium bowler) (Tendai) Chatara.
“However, if the boys could manage to put up consistent performance I am sure we would have seen better results,” said Butcher.
He said his teams showed quality in patches.
“In one of the ODI games we managed to score 273 for the loss of eight wickets but with the experience the West Indies had they managed to take it away from us. I can’t really fault the boys because they gave their all but at the end of the day we paid the price for the way we played because of the lack of quality in the batting (line-up) and (captain Brandon) Taylor struggled most of the time. I didn’t really expect too much bounce for the spinners in Bridgetown, I really expected the ball to turn but there was too much bounce but I loved the team spirit that the boys showed on the field but our biggest problem is that we did not get the runs,” said Butcher.
Online Reporter