Cape Town — After five years in the wilderness, Zimbabwe returned to the T20 World Cup with a grand victory over Ireland in Hobart yesterday.
Sikandar Raza, who has been in excellent form across formats for the last 12 months, played a match-winning role with 82 off 48 balls to spearhead Zimbabwe to an imposing 174/7. The all-rounder also chipped in with figures of 1/12 from three overs to restrict Ireland to 143/9.
Raza, though, was quick to praise the performance of the seam-bowling trio of Richard Ngarava (2/22), Tendai Chatara (2/22) and Blessing Muzarabani (3/23) that set up the victory by reducing Ireland to 22/4 in the powerplay.
The trio exploited the chilly evening conditions perfectly by getting the ball to seam away from the Ireland right-handers, and even utilised a slip to account for two dismissals.
“I think we’ve got a really good mixture of variety, pace, bounce, swing, seam. So it’s quite nice to have those good seamers back,” Raza said.
“It’s lovely to have Chatara back. He’s a senior guy who has taken Zimbabwe cricket forward. A lovely guy, works really hard.
“We’ve played a couple of series where everybody was injured. We missed them. It’s nice to have everybody back and have a squad at full strength, which you actually need at a World Cup.”
Raza also paid tribute to the impact coach Dave Houghton has had since returning to the Zimbabwean national team fold in July. Houghton took over the reins from Lalchand Rajput, who was appointed the team’s technical director.
“I think we have a very good squad. We’ve got a very diverse squad that’s actually gelling really well. I would say again the credit really goes to David, how he looked after individual needs, what needs to be done individually. And then he understands each and every individual player and brings us together. And I think that has been our strength and that’s why we’re gelling really well,” Raza said.
“David has made a massive difference since he’s taken over. David understands the players and given us the freedom and brought a long list. I thought those top two, the fact that there’s a lot of respect from the coaches and players, all those things he’s allowed us to bloom and basically play with responsibility and freedom. I think the credit goes to David.”
Zimbabwe’s victory followed up on fellow southern African nation Namibia’s shock victory over Asia Cup champions Sri Lanka on Sunday.
But there was a further surprise yesterday with Scotland also beating former two-time T20 World Cup champions West Indies by 42 runs.
The Scots posted 160/5 before bundling out the West Indies for just 118.
Zimbabwe face the wounded West Indies in their next game tomorrow, while Ireland will look to bounce back against the Scots.