Raza, Myers star as Chevrons make it three out of three

SIKANDAR Raza and Dion Myers produced brilliant performances with ball and bat respectively as Zimbabwe brushed Rwanda aside to win their third game in the ICC Men’s T20 World Cup Sub-Regional Africa Qualifier B in Nairobi, Kenya yesterday.

The Chevrons registered a mammoth 149 runs win over Rwanda. Yesterday’s victory is now Zimbabwe’s largest margin of victory by runs in T20Is, surpassing the previous best of 144 runs, which they set against Rwanda as well in Windhoek, Namibia, last year.

As the team rewrote their history books, Raza and Myers also achieved individual milestones. Myers now holds the highest score for Zimbabwe in T20Is (96 runs) while Raza has the best bowling figures in the format (5/18).

Batting first, Zimbabwe finished their innings on 240/8 in 20 overs courtesy of Myers’ brilliant show before going on to bundle out the East Africans for 91 runs with Raza leading from the front with the ball. Myers’ 96 runs surpassed the previous individual high score for Zimbabwe in T20Is of 94 runs, which was achieved by Solomon Mire in 2018 against Pakistan. The other Zimbabwean batters to have fallen in the “nervous 90s” in T20Is are Hamilton Masakadza (93 runs not out), PJ Moor (92 runs not out) and Brian Bennett (91 runs).

With ball in hand, Raza held the previous best record of 4/8 before he went on to pick up five scalps yesterday. He is now the only Zimbabwean to have picked up a five-wicket haul in T20Is.
Speaking after the match, Raza said he was pleased with having contributed to the team’s victory. He added that he was pleased with the way Myers and the rest of the team played. He was named player of the match.

“It feels nice, it always feels nice to win and contribute to the success of the team and that is the vision we have. We all try to add towards the success of the team and to be able to do that is humbling.

“The openers are doing well and the way Dion came and did the job was great. I will be dedicating this award to him. I am happy with the target we set. We started well and finished well but when the ball got soft in the middle overs it became a bit more difficult to clear the line, but we ticked pretty much every box today,” said Raza.

Zimbabwe had set Rwanda a target of 241 runs courtesy of a 45-ball 96 runs from Myers. Tadiwanashe Marumani fell for 44 runs off 18 deliveries while Clive Madande chipped in with 35 runs from 20 balls.

Rwanda’s Nadir Muhammad finished with figures of 3/47 in his four-over spell while Clinton Rubagumya had figures of 2/35 in five overs as well.

With Raza taking five, the other wickets were taken by Blessing Muzarabani (1/10), Ryan Burl (1/18) and Trevor Gwandu (1/22). The two other wickets that fell were run outs. Didier Ndikubwimana top scored for Rwanda with 36 runs off 42 deliveries. Zimbabwe’s next match is against Gambia today before they finish their campaign against the tournament hosts, Kenya ,tomorrow. — @brandon_malvin