Chronicle Editor
Brandon Moyo – [email protected]
ZIMBABWE Cricket (ZC) have confirmed six one-day matches against a Pakistani side in Harare next month as part of their final preparations for the International Cricket Council (ICC) Men’s Cricket World Cup Qualifier 2023 on home soil.
The upcoming tour will start off with two four-day games between Zimbabwe A and Pakistan A, popularly known as the Shaheens, scheduled for May 3-6 in Kwekwe and May 10-13 in Mutare.
After the two red ball games, action will then move to Harare for the 50-over series pitting a Zimbabwe Select team against the tourists, with the first encounter pencilled in for Takashinga Cricket Club on May 17.
The rest of the matches will then be played at Harare Sports Club on May 19, 21, 23, 25 and 27. It will be Zimbabwe’s last tour after a busy past few months before they head into the global showpiece.
ZC arranged the series to help the Chevrons fine-tune ahead of the crunch Qualifier that will be staged across four venues in Harare and Bulawayo from June 18 to July 9. The event will see 10 teams competing for the two remaining places at the ICC Men’s Cricket World Cup 2023 in India later in the year.
From the 10 teams scheduled to come to Zimbabwe, nine have been confirmed leaving just one vacant spot that will be filled by either South Africa or Ireland, however, the latter will have to whitewash Bangladesh to avoid going through the qualification process.
At the beginning of the month, Asian Cup champions, Sri Lanka were confirmed as the ninth team coming for the tournament after their hopes of directly booking their ticket to the World Cup went up in smoke after losing their three-match One Day International (ODI) series against New Zealand 2-0. This marks the first time in 44 years that the Sri Lankan team will have to play qualifiers in order to earn their place in the World Cup.
USA, UAE, Scotland, Oman, Nepal, Netherlands, West Indies, Sri Lanka, and Zimbabwe are the nine teams confirmed to take part in the qualifiers.
Pakistan A tour of Zimbabwe Match Schedule:
May 3-6: First Four-Dayer (Kwekwe Sports Club),
May 10-13: Second Four-Dayer (Mutare Sports Club),
May 17: First One-Dayer (Takashinga Cricket Club),
May 19: 2nd One-Dayer (Harare Sports Club),
May 21: 3rd One-Dayer (Harare Sports Club),
May 23: 4th One-Dayer (Harare Sports Club),
May 25: 5th One-Dayer (Harare Sports Club),
May 27: 6th One-Dayer (Harare Sports Club). — @brandon_malvin.
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