THE Zimbabwe senior national men’s cricket team’s Namibia tour may not have come at any better time with the International Cricket Council men’s T20 World Cup qualifier just weeks away.
While the results were bad, the chastening experience may be invaluable after the Chevrons got five matches in the conditions that they will contest the qualifiers in.
The Chevrons are happy that the tour helped them to acclimatise ahead of the qualifiers.
Losing the series was one of the lows of the visit, but it should give them some measure of what to expect when they return for the grand occasion scheduled for November 22 to 30.
Zimbabwe failed to chase down a paltry 101 runs in 20 overs in the fifth and final match and subsequently lost the series 3-2.
The five-match series started on a losing note as the hosts drew the first blood to win the opening match.
However, Zimbabwe bounced back to level the series and claim a lead in the third T20, thanks to batting heroics from perennial saviour Sikandar Raza with back-to-back half centuries.
It seems each time Raza catches a cold, the Chevrons sneeze as evidenced with his identical scores of two runs in the fourth and fifth matches.
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Zimbabwe lost both encounters and subsequently the series.
Skipper Craig Ervine came out of his shell in the fourth T20I with an unbeaten 54, as Tinashe Kamunhukamwe scored 32, Innocent Kaia (15), Ryan Burl (13) and Faraz Akram, 10 not out.
The Chevrons scored 153/6 and had Raza fired from all cylinders, the team would have been guaranteed a winning total.
They have to work on performing as a team and not to leave the burden of carrying the team on one player.
What became apparent is that Zimbabwe’s batting and bowling are dizygotic twins — they will never achieve the desired results both at the same time.
It is either the batting fires and the bowling collapses or vice versa.
The bowlers gave away so many runs in the second match.
Carl Mumba in his four overs went for 48 runs averaging 12.00, Raza averaged 12.66, giving away 38 runs in three overs, but redeemed himself with a match-winning performance with the bat.
Burl averaged 10.00 in three overs, Ainsley Ndlovu 6.75 in four overs, Tendai Chatara 7.75 in four while Luke Jongwe went for 12.00 in his only over.
Only Richard Ngarava seemed to have gone to Namibia with a distinct plan, he was very economical in the games that he played.
Ngarava went at 5.00 an over in the first match, 4.50 in the third encounter and just 2.00 in the final match where he bowled three overs, giving away six runs for two wickets.
Chatara went at 1.90, conceding seven runs in 3.4 overs.
There is still time for head coach Dave Houghton to assess his combinations and take a winning team to Namibia.
