Oman has plans for Raza, Williams and Ervine

ZIMBABWE begin their 2023 Men’s Cricket World Cup Qualifiers journey against Oman at Queens Sports Club today and their opponents believe they have had a perfect study of the Chevrons’ three in form players.

The Chevrons’ senior players, Sean Williams, Sikandar Raza and the skipper Craig Ervine have been in brilliant form and Oman have come up with a plan to try and restrict the Zimbabwean stars.

Speaking during the pre-match press conference, Omani fast bowler, Fayyaz Butt said they have studied the trio of Williams, Raza and Ervine. He also added that playing against Zimbabwe, a Test playing nation, will also give them the opportunity to learn.

“We have plans against them but I will not reveal it now. We know they are in fine form but we have already performed against them, I bowled against them and I got the wicket of the captain and I think if we bat first, we have to score around 300 runs. We have a plan.

“They (Chevrons) are, like, the best team and so whether we win or not we will learn from them something that will help in the future. We are hoping for a very good match tomorrow (today),” said Butt.

Williams, Raza and Ervine have all been sensational in Zimbabwe’s campaign so far and have managed to score centuries and half centuries in the group games.

Butt was also full of praise for the Chevrons who are yet to taste defeat in the tournament. Zimbabwe has won all the matches they have played so far (including warm up games). In the group stages, Zimbabwe played four games and won all of them including a crushing and record breaking 304 runs victory over the United States of America (USA).

“The thing with cricket is we will never know what will happen but they (Zimbabwe) are playing good so far, I have never seen them like that because they are performing very well, their batters and bowlers are in form. They are not going to scare us or things like that but it’s a big thing for us playing against them because they are a Test nation,” said Butt.

Zimbabwe and Oman’s game will be the first encounter of the Super Six after group games were completed on Tuesday at Queens Sports Club. The Chevrons topped Group A and carried with them four points to the Super Six while Oman finished in third place in Group B but will, however, get to the Super Six with zero points. Oman did not win against any of the other top two teams (Sri Lanka and Scotland) while the Chevrons recorded wins against Netherlands and the West Indies, who both made the top three.

A win for the Chevrons will see them move to six points, two clear of second placed Sri Lanka who also took with them four points and will play their first Super Six game tomorrow. Winning against Oman will be a big boost to Zimbabwe’s hopes of qualifying to the World Cup having missed out on the previous edition in 2019.

Winning two of their three Super Six games will be enough to send Dave Houghton’s men to India for the global showpiece and they will fancy their chances against Oman and Scotland whom they played against in the warm up games and beat.

After today’s game, Zimbabwe will face Sri Lanka on Sunday and go on to complete their Super Six games against Scotland on Tuesday. All of Zimbabwe’s Super Six matches will be played at Queens Sports Club.

Tickets for today’s match tickets are pegged at US$2 for the rest of the ground and US$5 for the grandstand. Tickets are available at the stadium gates and Chicken Inn retail outlets. – @brandon_malvin