adminADELAIDE. – After losing to the Netherlands here yesterday, which in turn snuffed out Zimbabwe’s hopes of progressing to the T20I World Cup semi-final, coach David Houghton said their fragile batting unit let them down through the course of the tournament.
The Chevrons lost by five wickets yesterday.
Barring the first game against Ireland, where Zimbabwe finished with 174, their scores in the tournament have been below the 150-run mark.
In fact, only Sikandar Raza has averaged over 25 (26.42) and only three batters, including Raza, have aggregated over 100 runs.
On a brighter note, Zimbabwe’s pace duo – Richard Ngarava and Blessing Muzarabani – have made an impression, picking up 8 and 11 wickets so far.
Raza has also chipped in with crucial scalps and is currently the second highest wicket-taker for his side, with 9 wickets.
“We’ve been quite fragile with our batting throughout this tournament,” Houghton said in the presser.
“It has been our bowling, really, and fielding and catching, that has kept us in. Unfortunately, it [the batting] let us down in a game like this, which would have been huge for us if we had won, because then we’ll go on to the next game with just that outside possibility.
“I think we just got a little bit in front of ourselves thinking of what the possibilities might be.”
The Zimbabwe think-tank has tried to be flexible with the batting order.
For instance, Regis Chakabva, who started Zimbabwe’s World Cup campaign as one of the openers, was moved down the order as the tournament progressed. “The biggest reason for moving batters around is that we’re not getting enough runs out of various players,” Houghton said.
“I mean, we’ve been literally living on some runs from Sean Williams and [Sikandar] Raza for the last short while and one or two contributions from Wesley [Madhevere] and occasionally from Craig Ervine.
“So, it has been difficult.
“We’re having to move people around to see if we can adjust the order a bit to make life a little bit easier so hopefully we get bigger contributions from everyone. “As I said, our batting has been brittle throughout this tournament. So we’ve done incredibly well to get where we’ve got to.”
The wicket for the game against Netherlands offered bounce, alongside a hint of movement, but the Zimbabwe batters couldn’t adjust to the conditions
“One of the things I’ve tried to encourage to the team, even if our batting is a bit fragile, is to still be positive and play with fearlessness.
“There was a bit of movement in that wicket, and we needed to do something about it.
“We needed to be batting a bit more positively, using our feet, going down the wicket at the seamers, but we didn’t.
“The seeds of doubt just kept us stuck to the crease, and unfortunately, it cost us.
“Since I’ve been in charge of the side, the last four-and-a-half months, we’ve had an incredible journey; we’ve played some really good cricket. This is probably the first time that I’ve seen a bit of doubt creep into our game. Hopefully, it’ll be the last time for a while as well.” – Cricbuzz
Mathew Masinge
Online Reporter