ZC search for answers

contest that ended at Harare Sports Club on Sunday.
The tourists completed a five-run victory in the last Twenty20 match and in the end, Zimbabwe finished without winning a match in six meetings despite coming close thrice during the tour.
The tour was very important for Zimbabwe who raised the nation’s hopes last month when they announced their return on the Test arena with a commendable victory over Bangladesh in the one off game and then recording a rare ODI series win over the Tigers.

But they failed to come to the party against a bigger opposition, which brings to the fore coach Alan Butcher’s concerns that the players need to believe in themselves and improve their confidence.
Zimbabwe have a few weeks to work on their shortcomings before engaging in another commitment against New Zealand who are expected in Harare early next month.
Despite showing signs of improvement against Bangladesh a month ago, it was a different game altogether against Pakistan as Butcher’s men played second fiddle while allowing the visitors to seize the initiative and extend their dominance in what probably was a stark pointer to the difference in the quality between the two sides.

It appeared the Zimbabweans were not mentally prepared to deal with an opposition of Pakistan’s stature after their long absence from high level competitive cricket.
There are moments of the tour that Zimbabwe would reflect on in disgust as they came within the distance to upstage their opponents but they left it until too late or they just could not cross the line.
Zimbabwe started off brightly in the Test match, powered by Tino Mawoyo’s century, as they amassed 412 in the first innings but after restricting Pakistan to 466, they crumbled in spectacular fashion in the second innings where they were dismissed for 141, setting Pakistan an easy target of 88 runs on the last day. Had the hosts kept cool heads, they could have salvaged a draw from this match, but after good work in the first innings they lost their way and performed poorly with the ball while their second innings was nothing short of disastrous.

Eventually Zimbabwe lost the Test by seven wickets. They also went on to lose the One-Day International series 3-0.
They had a better performance in the first match, however, despite falling by five runs after a spirited fightback from the batsmen, chasing 147 runs. But the first Twenty20 match last week was a no contest after Zimbabwe crashed to a 10-wicket drubbing.

They gave a good fight on Sunday when they lost the final T20 match by five runs.
The match had to be decided at the last delivery, where they needed six runs, but experience won the game for Pakistan.

Zimbabwe, however, are looking ahead with hope.
Captain Brendan Taylor said the two instances, in the first ODI and the second T20, where Zimbabwe came close to winning, gave them hope that things are getting better.

“It’s a massive boost for us to know that we are playing good cricket but we need to be a little more consistent,” said Taylor.
Zimbabwe are now shifting their focus to the tour by New Zealand.

“We will have two and half weeks of solid work, on our fitness and specifics. We are going to go away and work even harder than we did for this series. We are willing to learn and we are willing to get better fast so we can prove to the world that we can be competitive.”