Zim eye Kenyan scalp

ICC Cricket World Cup campaign that has left them with more questions, than answers, as they prepare to return to the Test club later this year.
The Zimbabweans will complete their World Cup tour programme with a final Group A tie against Kenya at the 90 000-seater Eden Gardens, the second biggest cricket ground in the world after the Melbourne Cricket Ground in Melbourne, Australia.
After winning just one of their five Group A matches, a crushing win over Canada, a defeat against Kenya will be a disaster for a Zimbabwean team at pains to convince a reluctant world that it has made significant strides to compete, once again, with the best.
Alan Butcher and his men knew that they would be under the media scrutiny when they came to this World Cup, with a return to Test cricket on the horizon, but whether that also contributed to their shaky performance with the bat will always be debatable.
While credit has been given to the Zimbabwe bowlers, it is very clear that they still lacked a cutting edge, especially in their pace attack, and bowling out a team appeared to be something beyond their capacity.
Tomorrow’s game is a tricky one for the Zimbabweans who come against a team boosted by their fighting performance, albeit in a losing cause, against world champions Australia and that is not under pressure to win.
The pressure is on Butcher and his man who have to justify to a doubting world that they are better than Kenya, the way they showed they were better than Canada, because a defeat tomorrow will leave Zimbabwe, Kenya and Canada on two points each and nothing to show the difference in class.
Butcher has already said he never believed his team would make an impact at this World Cup, saying he felt the tournament came a little too early for the comeback programme they are working on back home, and believes their return to test cricket could provide part of the solution to their shortcomings.
“You get used to batting long periods of time in Test cricket and that does relate to One-Day Cricket as well because your top four players, who can have long innings in the one day game, might have got the benefit of playing longer in Test cricket,” said Butcher.
“There wasn’t any meaningful first-class cricket (in Zimbabwe).
“That certainly has started in the last two years. We are not making any excuses but there have been problems in the development of players, in the development of their techniques, problems in their game understanding and that is being found out playing at a high level like the World Cup.”
Zimbabwe started their campaign in high spirits with their superb fielding show against Australia and, even though they did not complement that with their batting, there was hope for the next games.
But the Zimbabweans slumped to a 10-wicket defeat against New Zealand, the first of three straight defeats, with further losses against Pakistan and Sri Lanka where they failed to post totals past the 200-mark.
In contrast Kenya come into tomorrow’s match with a spring in their step and one tends to be tempted to believe what is coming from their camp that they took longer to adjust to the World Cup challenge, which included a defeat against Canada, but they have now found their touch.
Their batting performance against world champions Australia was refreshing, even though they fell to a 60-run defeat, and – crucially – they managed to reach 264-6, a total that has proved too far a bridge to cross for Zimbabwe against the established Test nations.
Collins Obuya’s magnificent unbeaten 98 for the Kenyans that day was as good an innings as any player has played against the world champions.
Obuya’s knock was his highest innings at the World Cup, surpassing the 52 against Sri Lanka at Colombo, on March 1, 2011 and it was is second half-century at the World Cup, something that Craig Ervine has only managed among the Zimbabwean batsmen, and his ninth in ODIs.
The Kenyans managed seven sixes against the champions, a record by any team against Australia at the World Cup, and went one better than India, Pakistan and South Africa who have six sixes in an innings against the Aussies.
Obuya and Tanmay Mishra put on a 115-run partnership and Obuya and Thomas Odoyo recorded 86 for the fifth wicket – Kenya’s highest against Australia in ODIs.
Obuya now holds the Kenyan record for the highest individual innings and the best bowling in an innings in the World Cup.
Nehemiah Odhiambo (3/57) registered his best World Cup performance, surpassing the 2-45 against Canada.
“I’m very proud of the innings against the world champions,” Obuya said. “It is very great to score runs against them, and a not out makes it even better.
“I wanted a century very badly, but I’ll settle for 98 each and every day against Australia.”
Kenyan captain Jimmy Kamande wants his team to win against Zimbabwe saying that the world remembers teams that win and not teams that do very well in defeat.
“At the end of the day, it’s about the matches that you win, not just the performances you give out there,” said Kamande.
“The important thing is that we keep improving every match.”