Waller disappointed with his charges

Jeffrey Murimbechi Sports Correspondent
Zimbabwe cricket team coach, Andy Waller, is disappointed at his team’s underperformance against India in the Celkon Mobile ODI series yesterday on a day when all odds favoured a home side’s victory to square the series. A series of mistakes in the field and poor shot selection led to a 58-run loss against the world champions.
“Even though India got over 290 runs, we were in a position to beat them, we were 109 for one after 20 overs but some rushed shots cost us again.
“We let them get away with too many runs as well and reduced our chances. It does not help (our over rate) when you bowl three or so extra overs in wides and no balls,” said Waller.

Zimbabwe gave away 28 extras, mostly from wides and no balls, but the biggest opportunities lost were the three dropped catches which gave Shikhar Dhawan the opportunity to score 116 runs.

Fine bowling had the tourists restricted to 65 runs for four wickets and would have possibly been 50 runs for five in under 15 overs and victory would have been certain.

“It was very costly, obviously, one does not want to have dropped catches but we had them, with players of that calibre you don’t drop catches.
“We look back at them with regret, no one wants to drop no balls and no one wants to bowl no balls.”

At the same time the gaffer is optimistic that Zimbabwe’s current form is sufficient to prevent a whitewash.
“I still believe we have got the players to come back, we had a chance of winning this game.

“I have no doubt we have the players who can get the runs but we have got to learn from our mistakes.”
The wicket was easy to bat on and both teams did not struggle with the bowling but each players’ shot selection is still the decisive factor.
Waller believes Zimbabwe should learn to emulate the Indians’ match intelligence just as Prosper Utseya and Elton Chigumbura did in the lower order for their 88-run partnership for the seventh wicket.

“The batters know that they are making mistakes and what is partly frustrating is that we should be learning from the opposition.
“When we look at guys like Kolhi and the rest, they don’t play too many rushed shots, they keep it simple and we should be learning from that.
“We have got to start doing that otherwise we are going to find it difficult again.”

Zimbabwe currently trail 2-0 in the five-match series and need to win tomorrow to remain in the running for the trophy and prevent the last two matches at Queens Sports Club next week from turning into dead rubbers.