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Eddie Chikamhi-Senior Sports Reporter
THE Zimbabwe national women’s cricket team will not leave anything to chance at Takashinga Sports Club today in the decisive T20 match against the visiting Thailand side.
This has largely been a balanced affair, which saw the tourists levelling the T20 series 1-1, at the weekend.
The teams also settled for a 2-2 draw in the four-match unofficial One Day series last week.
Zimbabwe won the first T20 by one wicket, in a nail-biting contest on Friday, but they fell short the following day, when they went down by 53 runs.
Lady Chevrons coach, Adam Chifo, has been reflecting on the team’s performances.
“There are a lot of things we still need to work on going into the next game,’’ he said.
“What we are going to try and do is, maybe, improve more on things that we did well and also taking into consideration areas that we need to improve on.
“I thought, maybe, we are still having too many dot balls. We are not rotating strike as much as we would want.
“So, going into the next game, those are some of the areas that we are going to be looking into.
“Regarding our bowling, again, we need to be more disciplined and take all the chances that come to us when fielding.
“Otherwise, good performances from the ladies. “It actually shows that we have the depth, we have the talent despite not having enough time to prepare, because of the Covid-19 pandemic restrictions.
“I thought the ladies turned up very well, seven days of camp and straight into a tour like this, and also not having played for a long time, I think we did very well.’’
But, the series could still go either way.
Thailand have demonstrated they are not pushovers by the way they have sprung back every time they got a setback.
The see-saw affair has been a reflection of the ICC women’s T20 rankings in which the 13th placed Zimbabwe are ranked one rung below the Thais.
Zimbabwe are using the tour to prepare for the 2021 ICC Women’s T20 World Cup Africa Qualifier set for Botswana, next month, and the ICC Women’s World Cup Global Qualifier, to be held here, in November.
Meanwhile, Zimbabwe Cricket have appointed former international players, Elton Chigumbura and Kyle Jarvis, as national talent scouts. In their new role, the duo will be responsible for identifying players, from around the country, and mentoring them from grassroots, all the way up the development pathway.
Chigumbura, a former Zimbabwe captain, retired from all forms of international cricket at the conclusion of Zimbabwe’s tour to Pakistan in November 2020.
The 34-year-old bowed out having made 213 ODI, 14 Test and 57 T20I appearances for Zimbabwe. Jarvis called time on his career in June this year, at the age of 32, after struggling with injury and illness.
The fast bowler retired having played 13 Tests, 49 ODIs and 22 T20Is.
Online Reporter