Taylor hopes for better show

series of matches starting with a Twenty20 game at Harare Sports Club tomorrow afternoon.
The side has been involved in international cricket over the past few months marked by a welcome return to the longer version of the game with a win over Bangladesh at the same venue two months ago.
But they are yet to win a match in any format of the game since they suffered a defeat to Bangladesh in the fourth of the five ODI games and went on to fall on all fronts against Pakistan following fielding and batting mistakes in the side.

But the hosts’ captain believes they have paid attention to those areas during their preparations for New Zealand with the use of the domestic league games over the past weeks.
“I think we have put that (defeat and errors) behind us now. We have prepared well for this series and we are looking forward to a good game on Saturday.
“We have worked hard on our fielding and other areas. It’s something that we have discussed, everyone has made an individual commitment.
“It’s something that we have worked on. We have to come out and play some good cricket and I am happy that morale is high in camp.”
His Black Caps’ counterpart, Ross Taylor, said despite the fact that they had a long break, since they last played at the World Cup, some of the players were active in other leagues, which could be an advantage to his side.

“I hope so (to win); we had a few players playing there. James Franklin just arrived from Mumbai Indians after scoring 41 runs in the final. So we take the momentum from that and the experience he had.
“We came here to win every game. As the captain I have to lead from the front and score runs, that’s my main objective, leading from the front and winning.”
His coach John Wright is banking on the spin attack.

“We have three spin all-rounder, Nathan McCullum, Rob Nicol and Luke Woodcock who was part of the World Cup squad.
“They have the opportunity but I don’t know if they will be in the same team. But we are covered in this area.”
Twenty-year-old Natsai Mushangwe of Mountaineers is in line for his first cap and coach Alan Butcher spoke highly of him.

” He’s come into the squad to give our two more experienced spinners some back-up if we feel that the pitches require it.
“He made his debut in the triangular versus Australia and South Africa A squads and bowled very well against south Africa A.
“We certainly think that in one-day cricket he is somebody who certainly needs opportunities to play and opportunities to progress in his game.

“He certainly has the temperament to step up and play at the highest level,” said Butcher.
He revealed he misses the services of Graeme Cremer.
“It’s (the unavailability of Cremer) been a blow, he would have made a difference in the Pakistan series particularly in the Test.

“But again his injury has been long term, he has been out for three to four months now and it is something that we’ve learnt to live with. We will be looking forward to him regaining full fitness and being part of our attack again.

New Zealand all-rounder Jacob Oram wants his team to stay focussed.
“I think the key to this tour is not getting complacent, not taking Zimbabwe lightly because if we are honest with ourselves, even though we had a very good World Cup, we are not the most consistent side.
“We really have to start treating every match we play like it’s a World Cup knockout game so we can put performances on the board that warrant our talent level.”

Oram said the fresh feel to the New Zealand set-up, after they made sweeping changes to their coaching staff last December, was one of the things motivating him to continue playing international cricket.
“But another reason is that I see a lot of excitement in the current crop of players and also the changing of support staff.

“That’s no disrespect to the previous support staff. Everything is so new I think it’s injected this enthusiasm into the squad that hopefully I can feed off and make me feel a few years younger.”
The changes were made after New Zealand suffered a 0-4 ODI defeat to Bangladesh last year Oram has retired from Test cricket but is part of the side that will take on Zimbabwe in the limited overs series.

Following New Zealand’s run to the semi-final of the World Cup, during which Oram took 12 wickets and was Man-of-the-Match in the quarter-final, he played in the IPL for Rajasthan Royals until the end of May.