ZIMBABWE collected their first set of points at the ongoing International Cricket Council Men's T20 World Cup Qualifier Africa following a nine-wicket win over hapless Tanzania in Windhoek yesterday.
The top order batters did all the damage after captain Sikandar Raza and seamer, Richard Ngarava's three wickets apiece earlier restricted minnows Tanzania to 96/9 in their 20 overs.
Raza took 3/10 in four overs while Ngarava claimed 3/17 in four overs as well with Ryan Burl and Tendai Chatara taking a wicket each.
Zimbabwe openers, Tadiwanashe Marumani and Innocent Kaia, contributed 31 runs before the latter was caught for 21 runs off 18 balls.
What then followed was carnage as Marumani and Sean Williams finished unbeaten on 39 from 27 balls and 36 from 19 respectively with the Chevrons scoring 98/1 in 10.4 overs.
This was the kind of bullying head coach expected from his charges but Wednesday's seven wicket loss at the hands of hosts, Namibia threw their game plan into the forest.
A disappointed Houghton said the Chevrons saw demons on a glorious batting track.
“When you are not playing particularly well and when you have lost a little bit of confidence as we have, we see demons in the wicket when we bat, but when we bowl there are no demons in the wicket,” he said after the loss.
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“We can’t dwell on these losses. It’s important they recognise how bad a loss that was — which is what I have just given them in the changeroom — but it is a quick turnaround and that’s a good thing we can put it all right tomorrow afternoon (yesterday) and get ourselves on the board with a win and then start our march towards qualifying.”
The Chevrons will next face Uganda on Sunday and Rwanda the following day. They date Nigeria on Wednesday and wind off their campaign against Kenya on Thursday.
The top two teams in this round robin format qualify for the 2024 T20 World Cup scheduled for West Indies and USA.
Meanwhile, the Lady Chevrons training camp continues this afternoon where they take on the visiting South Africa Emerging Women in the fourth unofficial T20I at Takashinga Sports Club in Highfield.
The Mary-Anne Musonda-captained side bounced back from a 1-0 defeat to lead the series 2-1 with three games left to play.
