Zimbabwe know they are capable of upsetting a top-eight side or two, but their first priority at the World Cup is to avoid embarrassment against Ireland or UAE
Firdose Moonda09-Feb-2015Cricket’s big (read: Test-playing) teams use matches against smaller outfits to take a breather or experiment, even during a major tournament. Zimbabwe will use those fixtures to reassure themselves they still belong among the elite.”The most important games are Ireland and the UAE,” Craig Ervine said. “If we lose one of those, it makes the task of getting to the quarterfinals ten times harder. But if we can win both of those and hopefully cause an upset with one of the others, it gives us a chance.”That succinct analysis reveals much of what we need to know about the Zimbabwean mindset. They’re not among the top eight, they’re not among the cute and cuddlies – Ireland, Afghanistan, Nepal or the UAE – bubbling under, they’re stuck in an awful limbo between jumping off the edge and being pushed and it makes competing in a World Cup a test of character and skill.Zimbabwe are not supposed to be so concerned with Associate nations because they are supposed to beat them and beat them comfortably. But there remains the real possibility that they may not, which is why Zimbabwe’s first focus is on the teams ranked below them, rather than punching above their weight. “It’s beating those smaller teams first before we can have any sight of beating a bigger team,” Sean Williams confirmed, while Brendan Taylor called the penultimate group stage match against Ireland “the biggest game for us.”Taylor acknowledged that his harsh reality is that even if Zimbabwe win against the two teams they do not want lose against, it may not be enough to secure a spot in the knockouts. In 2011, they were victorious over Canada and Kenya, but lost to all of Australia, New Zealand, Pakistan and Sri Lanka and were booted out. They need to beat one of the big boys to get through and Taylor has identified “West Indies or Pakistan” as teams they fancy themselves against, although he knows it will take a performance bigger than the sum of all Zimbabwe’s individual parts to do that.They have only delivered one example of that in the last year, beating Australia in the triangular series at home, despite threatening to pull off a few more recently. “What disappointed me the most was after how well we bowled at South Africa in two of the games, the way we batted,” Taylor said. “That was frustrating because if one guy just put his hand up, we would have got two wins there.”Zimbabwe bowled South Africa out for the first time since the 1999 World Cup in August last year during their bilateral series in Bulawayo and again in the triangular series involving Australia. Both times, they restricted South Africa to under 260 but they failed to chase 258 and 232 when none of their batsman took responsibility in a line-up that collapsed.Who does Taylor think will do it this time? “I’d like to say myself; well, myself and a few others,” he said. “We are batting to No.8 now, we used to bat to No.7. It might leave us a bit thin when it comes to bowlers but on these smaller grounds, I think it will be quite high scoring and the team that bats the best is giving themselves a better chance.”Zimbabwe’s line-up has been bolstered by the inclusion Solomon Mire, who has taken the role of finisher off Elton Chigumbura’s hands. “Elton hits the ball far but Solomon hits the ball harder. He is really good to watch,” Taylor said. Mire was a rookie at the Melbourne Renegades, played in the Dhaka Premier League and is in good form, with 68 from 32 balls and 39 from 23 balls in two of the three games Zimbabwe played against Northern Districts last week. Zimbabwe won all three games, although two of them were close contests, and had what Ervine said was “the best practice we could have asked for.”Despite squeezing past the New Zealand domestic side by 22 runs in the first match and 11 runs in the third – the second game saw Zimbabwe win by eight wickets in more dominant fashion – Zimbabwe posted over 200 twice and over 300 once and developed a rhythm to their batting. “We have a good pattern now. We have the guys at the top, with Sean Williams coming back it strengthens the middle order and towards the end we’ve got Solomon and Elton, who are quite explosive,” Ervine said.It also gave them a glimpse of how their bowling is holding up on batsmen-friendly surfaces. Williams believes they lack for a “wicket-taking” spinner, especially since Prosper Utseya was banned from bowling spin because of an illegal action. Utseya is in the squad and will bowl medium-pace but Chigumbura admitted a slew of allrounders makes it tricky for him to manage the attack and his own bowling will “play a big part when it comes to the balance of the team,” so he will be doing a lot of it.”Prosper’s situation didn’t help us. He was our banker in the middle overs but Sean Williams has proven to be very handy for us and Tafadzwa Kamungozi is quite economical. I think the fifth bowler is a tricky one,” Taylor said. “If we can sneak a few overs our of Sikandar Raza and maybe Hamilton Masakadza we should get through but you have to be careful on smaller grounds where big teams will look to target that fifth bowler.”It was beginning to look as though Zimbabwe were working through that in their warm-up match against New Zealand. Raza and Masakadza and Kamungozi each got a wicket, Tinashe Panyangara and Chigumbura got two apiece and Zimbabwe had the co-hosts on the ropes at 157 for 7 when the match was called off. Zimbabwe will never know whether that was good enough to cause what they now consider an upset against a top-eight team but it suggests they can surprise. If they listen to their captain and understand that “not panicking too early will be key in this tournament,” they may surprise when it really matters.
