Brandon Moyo, Sports Reporter
AFTER recent trends of winning the first match and going on to give it away, in the other games, another chance of finally walking as victors of a series is up for grabs for the Chevrons who face Ireland in a potential series decider at Harare Sports Club today.
Zimbabwe lead the three-match One Day International (ODI) 1-0 going into today’s penultimate encounter.
A win for Zimbabwe today will see them win their first series under the new era of Justin Sammons.
The Chevrons took a series lead courtesy of a Brian Bennett inspired 49 runs win on Friday.
The 21-year-old ace scored a brilliantly batted 169 runs off 163 deliveries, writing his name in Zimbabwe Cricket history books.
Speaking after Friday’s opener, Chevrons skipper Craig Ervine said they need to avoid complacency going forward if they are to get it right. He is wary of the trend of giving away matches.
Craig Ervine
The veteran batter, who brought up his 22nd ODI half century on Friday also heaped praise on Bennett, saying that his 95-run opening partnership with Ben Curran set up a good foundation for the other batters to come in and play freely.
He added that there are a number of fielding issues that they need to work on going into today’s game after a couple of dropped catches on Friday.
“Bennett played extremely well, perfect tempo. You have to capitalise on chances, which he did. Openers doing well is crucial as it will allow other batters to play with freedom. The surface played reasonably well throughout. Was a little bit slow at the start.
“We were looking at the 300 mark at the start. Even though we got there, we knew we had to bowl well to defend. We are trying to work on a few things. We have won first games before giving it away. Need to make sure we don’t get complacent. Our spinners did really well in the middle overs. We were probably a bit poor in the field today, lot of things to work on for Sunday,” said Ervine.
In Friday’s opener, Bennett – who was named player of the match – fell four runs shy from becoming the second Zimbabwean to carry his bat after Grant Flower who was the first to achieve that feat in history against England in 1994.
Zimbabwe were sent in to bat first and were restricted to 299/5 in 50-overs. They went on to bowl out Ireland for 250 runs in 46 overs.
Johnathan Campbell was handed his ODI debut.
Bennett and Curran opened the batting for Zimbabwe with the latter falling in the 19th over for 28 runs, ending a 95-run opening wicket partnership.
After a record breaking second wicket between Bennett and Ervine, the partnership was broken by Graham Hume who had the skipper caught for 66 runs off 61 balls.
Sikandar Raza — who missed the solitary Test match in Bulawayo and Wessly Madhevere fell for identical eight-run scores.
Bennett’s brilliant innings came to an end with four balls left in the innings. Mark Adair, who got Bennett’s wicket finished with figures of 2/55 in 10 overs. Josh Little, Hume and Andy McBrine picked up one wicket apiece for the visitors.
Defending the 300-run target, Zimbabwe had a dream start to the match with Richard Ngarava striking with the first ball. He had Andy Balbirnie caught behind for a golden duck. Zimbabwe did not give the visitors the chance to rebuild as they kept on picking up wickets at regular intervals.
Blessing Muzarabani was once again the pick of the Zimbabwean bowlers with impressive figures of 4/51 in nine overs. His fast bowling partner, Richard Ngarava claimed figures of 3/56 in nine overs.
Madhevere had also had a good spell with the ball, picking up two wickets for 12 runs in two overs.
Raza picked up the other wicket.
Curtis Campher top scored for Ireland with 44 runs off 57 deliveries while Harry Tector fell for 39 runs from 78 balls. George Dockrell made 34 runs off 35 balls while Paul Stirling chipped in with 32 runs after facing 28 deliveries.
Meanwhile, the Canada national team arrived in Harare on Friday evening ahead of their clashes with Zimbabwe A.
The 50-over series is scheduled to commence at Takashinga Cricket Club in Highfield on 26 February, before shifting to Harare Sports Club for the remaining two fixtures on 28 February and 1 March.
Today’s crunch encounter is scheduled to start at 9.30AM. — @ brandon_malvin.
