adminPaul Munyuki Harare Bureau
ZIMBABWE cricket side need a big win over South Africa today at Harare Sports Club if they are to make it into the final of their One Day International triangular series on Saturday.
The winner of today’s game at Harare Sports Club will join Australia, who booked their place in the final on Tuesday, following a 62-run win over the Proteas.
South Africa could even qualify with a loss, as long as they don’t gift Zimbabwe a bonus point, and coach Steven Mangongo knows they have a huge task.
“We will treat it as a key game, all three departments need to come to the party. The bowling, batting and fielding departments all need to play out of their skins,” Mangongo said.
“It is good that we have something positive to expect and our result against Australia is proof that hard work pays.
“But we still have a job to perform and we will not read much into the previous game, past is past, and we are looking forward to playing South Africa.
“Every game is different, we are still underdogs because statistics don’t lie, they are a team ranked above us and we still have a lot of work to do.”
Zimbabwe are coming from a huge victory and have the momentum to carry into such a big game against the Proteas.
The hosts know that they had a good chance to beat the Proteas, in their last meeting, but fluffed their lines in their batting.
“Our (performance) graph has been on an upward trend and we want to continue like that so we have to keep on working hard…no pain no gain.That is why we are in the nets today,” said Mangongo.
“Of course, the win over Australia brought some necessary vibe, it brought hype.
“We all love it when we cross the rope but the boys will have to play as professional as they can. Yes, we are happy we got the win on Sunday but we should not get carried away because this is a new challenge.
“We need to improve on our catches, we need to be good as a team and take control of the things we are able to do.”
Prosper Utseya was awesome in the last match between the two sides, claiming a memorable hattrick, while he also contributed with both bat and ball against the Aussies.
South Africa had anticipated winning their game against the Aussies on Tuesday so that they could rest their top players for the final.
But things didn’t go according to plan and they are now looking to fielding a full-strength squad.
“We respect them (Zimbabwe) and we need to beat them so I don’t think we will rest any players for that one,” star batsman Faf du Plessis said.
Online Reporter