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Sports Reporter
ZIMBABWE A put up another poor batting performance in the fourth unofficial one-day international to lose their fourth match of the series, which had to be calculated according to the Duckworth-Lewis method. After three successive defeats, Zimbabwe A made four changes to their team for this match at Harare Sports Club. Brian Chari, Carl Mumba, Neville Madziva and Ryan Murray were all omitted and replaced by Malcolm Waller, Victor Nyauchi, Mutombodzi and Richard Ngarava.
Ngarava, the Under-19 left-arm pace bowler, was making his début in senior representative cricket.
On winning the toss on a good pitch in warm, fairly dry and partly cloudy conditions, Afghanistan A put in the hosts to bat first.
The openers, Innocent Kaia and PJ Moor, began cautiously against accurate bowling, and only two runs, one of them a wide, came off the first two overs.
Then Moor hit a handsome four through the covers, only to poke at a delivery from Nawaz Khan two balls later and edge a straight-forward catch to the keeper; nine for one in the fourth over.
After eight overs the score had reached only 19, but then, just as the batsmen seemed to be finding their confidence, Tarisai Musakanda (9) drove at a ball outside the off stump from Nawaz Khan and was given out caught at the wicket; 26 for two.
With Kaia struggling for runs and Ryan Burl settling in, the scoring rate dropped to two an over, but gradually they both began to pick off ones and twos fairly regularly.
The team fifty did not come up until the 20th over.
The partnership added 44 at three an over before Kaia finally fell, swatting a ball from Ziaurrahman Akbar to midwicket for 33 off 83 balls; Zimbabwe A were 70 for three in the 24th over, a worrying scoring rate.
Malcolm Waller, restored to the team, was the first batsman to challenge the supremacy of the bowlers.
At the 40-over mark the score was a totally inadequate 140 for five wickets.
Mutombodzi and Nathan Waller were pushing the score along in ones and twos, but without urgency, as if quite unaware of the desperate need to take risks to have any chance of presenting Afghanistan A with a challenging target.
They put on 53 in 12 overs before Nathan Waller fell lbw to Mohammad Ibrahim for 22 off 40 balls, a disappointing effort considering his usual vigorous style of batting.
Mutombodzi now decided it was time to hit out, and reached his fifty off 53 balls.
If Zimbabwe A were to have any chance of pulling off a shock victory after such a batting performance, they could only do it by taking 10 wickets, not by trying to save runs.
It was therefore disappointing to see Chatara and Ngarava opening the bowling with just a single slip as the only close fielder apart from the wicketkeeper.
Nevertheless the value of the slip was shown immediately, as Imran Janat, after cracking a boundary through the covers, edged the last ball of the opening over from Chatara straight to the slip, and Afghanistan A were five for one.
Chatara and Ngarava bowled well and only 11 runs came off the first five overs, but with a reasonable target to chase the batsmen were not under pressure.
Play continued through bad light and a steady drizzle, but eventually the umpires were forced to suspend play with the score 147 for three in the 35th over.
Online Reporter