We expect pace barrage: Flower

SYDNEY.
Zimbabwe’s batsmen have been told to expect plenty of short stuff in their opening Cricket World Cup match against defending champions Australia today.
Zimbabwe batting coach Grant Flower says Australia’s pace trio of Shaun Tait, Brett Lee and Mitchell Johnson will be a major concern for the African minnows.
“They’ve got some very good quick bowlers and I’m sure they’ll be backing themselves against us,” Flower told reporters.
“There might be quite a bit of short bowling. I think the guys are aware of that and they’ve practised for that. We’ll have to see on the day, hopefully we have prepared properly.”
In preparation for the clash between Ricky Ponting’s defending champions and the world number 11-ranked Zimbabwe, Flower has been working the phones in a bid to get some glimmer of hope.
He has been chatting to England coach Andy Flower, his brother, about how to stop Shane Watson. The opener averaged 48,33 in a beaten side in this summer’s Ashes Test series and won his second Allan Border Medal as Australia’s overall player of the year.
“He has been playing brilliantly. I spoke to my brother last night and asked him the same thing,” Grant Flower said. “He didn’t have many answers. But our main strength is spin, so hopefully we can get it in the right areas and he (Watson) might succumb to the same pressures that everyone else is under.”
Zimbabwe are set to put left-arm spinner Ray Price and right-arm off-break bowler Prosper Utseya into the firing line and hope Australia’s middle-order batting falls over against spin like it did in their two warm-up defeats against India and South Africa.
Flower, one of several former star players who have ended their absence from Zimbabwe cricket in a bid to help rebuild the troubled national team, said Zimbabwe would go backwards because of the ICC’s decision to reduce the 14-team World Cup to 10 nations in 2015 in Australia and New Zealand. Banned from Test cricket since 2005, Zimbabwe will regain Test status later this year.
“We’ve had our troubles with some of us leaving the country,” Flower said. “We left under not the greatest circumstances but hopefully that is all in the past. Both parties probably made some mistakes but that’s life, nothing’s perfect. Things are moving in the right direction. We’ve got a good franchise system in place now, we’ve had some good overseas pros who have come and helped raise the standard. I don’t agree with it (ICC decision). Those nations need exposure for them to develop. – Sydney Morning Herald.
“I probably shouldn’t say too much about it.
“But if it does happen then I see those teams going backwards, not forwards.”