Chronicle Editor
Brandon Moyo, Sports Reporter
TUSKERS’ poor campaign in the ongoing 2023/24 Pro50 Cricket Championship continued as they suffered yet another defeat on Friday at the hands of Southern Rocks at Masvingo Sports Club.
The 15 runs defeat was their fourth in five outings this season, making it a dismal campaign for the Bulawayo based outfit with only a few games left to play. As the men in blue are struggling to get going, their counterparts in the Eagles camp based in Harare have become the first team to book a place in the final of the competition as they have now amassed 14 points from a possible 14 thus far by winning all their seven games.
For Eagles, only one game is left to play while Tuskers have three more to find redemption. In Friday’s encounter, Tuskers won the toss and elected to field first and went on to restrict their opponents to 233/7 in 50 overs before they were bowled out for 218 runs in 48,5 overs.
Veteran Chris Mpofu, Mgcini Dube and Milton Shumba led the Tuskers bowling unit as they both picked up two wickets apiece. Mpofu finished with figures of 2/42 in his 10 overs while youngster, Dube had figures of 2/36 in his eight over spell. Shumba conceded 52 run in the nine overs that he bowled. The only other wicket that fell was taken by Ainsley Ndlovu, who finished with figures of 1/32 in 10 overs as well.
Tafadzwa Tsiga, in Southern Rocks’ middle order top scored with an unbeaten 77 runs which came off as many balls while opening batter, Brian Mudzinganyama was bowled three runs short of his half century on 47 runs from 81 balls.
Tuskers’ chase got off to a bad start as they lost an early wicket of Hamid Ali for a duck in the first over, leaving the team on 2-1. Luke Jongwe tried to put up a fight for Tuskers in the middle order as he top scored for them but his effort was not enough to see the team through.
Jongwe fell for 42 runs off 45 balls while the skipper, Brian Chari chipped in with 35 runs after facing 62 deliveries. Clive Madande also fell in the 30s as the made 31 runs having faced 34 balls. Roy Kaia did the most damage with the ball for Southern Rocks, finishing with figures of 3/38 in 10 overs.
Sydney Murombo finished with figures of 2/18 in five overs while Trevor Gwandu picked two scalps for 42 runs in nine overs. Johnathan Campbell, Keith Jaure and William Mashinge all took one wicket each as Southern Rocks won their second match from five outings.
The two teams will return to action again today at the same venue and Tuskers will be hoping to make amends and collect maximum points for the second time this season. The match between the two will not be the only one taking place today as finalists, Eagles will be up against Rhinos at Kwekwe Sports Club. —@brandon_malvin
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