adminAFTER his side was embarrassed by minnows Afghanistan in a One Day International and Twenty20 International contests in Bulawayo, national cricket team coach Davenell Whatmore has asked for an improvement from his side.
Zimbabwe endured one of their most humiliating moments when they lost the five-match ODI contest 3-2 and were clean swept 2-0 in the T20Is by International Cricket Council Associate member Afghanistan.
The defeats have been met with outrage by Zimbabwe cricket lovers who have taken to various social media platforms to express their outrage over the Elton Chigumbura captained team’s display.
Whatmore has remained positive, saying the team was lacking in terms of experience. The side that took on Afghanistan had a number of players without experience of competing at international level. Left arm spinner Tendai Chisoro, a player transformed from a pace bowler made his debut and finished the ODIs with nine wickets to his name.
Zimbabwe have played an unbelievable amount of international cricket this year at home against India, New Zealand, Pakistan, Ireland and Afghanistan. This has brought with it challenges as the players try to adjust to the huge amount of game time.
“We have not had the best team on the field, in these conditions we have not had our best spinner, Cremer, he played against Pakistan, sprained his ankle. We are building a team for 2019, we want to identify and give an opportunity to the younger players, much to the annoyance of many.
“It takes time for them to get used to playing at that level, it doesn’t help when you have injuries along the way, we have our best fast bowler Chatara injured, it is not an excuse. Our pool of players is not as big as other countries,’’ said Whatmore.
The Sri Lanka born Australian coach could not be drawn to speak on the exclusion of senior batsmen Hamilton Masakadza and Vusumuzi Sibanda only stating that with three formats in international cricket, the two could still play a part in any of them. Masakadza and Sibanda have again been left out of the Zimbabwean team which leaves the country today for Bangladesh. Whatmore at least has his wishes fulfilled as Cremer has recovered and is part of the team.
Whatmore has spoken of the disappointment of being told by Brendan Taylor that the batsman was quitting international cricket to pursue a country cricket career in England on a Kolpak deal which prohibits him from playing for Zimbabwe. Taylor announced he was retiring from international cricket to join Nottinghamshire during the ICC Cricket World Cup in March.
“He (Taylor) told me on the afternoon of Pakistan, I was devastated, he has given so much to the game in Zimbabwe, he wasn’t sure what the future was, he didn’t know we were going to play more cricket,’’ said Whatmore.
On the series defeat to Afghanistan, the coach believes Zimbabwe were not able to restrict the Asians to gettable totals.
“We were unable to restrict the opposition to a gettable total, only three batsmen contributed, they were the ones responsible, we were chasing scores which were above what we should have been chasing,’’ Whatmore said.
On the visit to Bangladesh where Zimbabwe are going to play three ODIs and two T20Is, Whatmore while conceding that it was not going to be an easy tour, vowed to surprise people and show what the team can do.
derick.khumalo
Online Reporter