Zimbabwe’s high-flying cricket team, under the dynamic leadership of Head Coach Dave Houghton, are ready to showcase their aggressive, crowd-pleasing brand of cricket against the Netherlands in the second match of the ICC Men’s Cricket World Cup Qualifier.
The much-anticipated face-off will take place at the Harare Sports Club.
Zimbabwe viciously swept past Nepal on Sunday at the same venue, chasing down 290 for the loss of two wickets. The protagonists were Chevrons’ skipper Craig Ervine and all-rounder Sean Williams both scoring unbeaten hundreds. Ervine scored 121 from 128 balls, while Williams reached 100 from just 70 deliveries and was also not out on 102. The Test captain tore into the history books toppling former skipper Brendan Taylor off the fastest One Day International from 79 balls he scored at the 2015 World Cup against Ireland, co-hosted by Australia and New Zealand.
“It was a sound batting performance, particularly chasing quite a big score. We made it quite easy. I thought bowling and fielding displayed in the first half of the session weren’t great,” Houghton told Reporters on Monday.
“But we came back really well in the last 20 overs, a pretty good start by the Nepalese opening batsmen at 170 before we took a wicket, and to keep them to 290/8 was a good comeback for us. Lots of fighting spirit and good resilience in the field. We didn’t have a great start, but I think we came back really strong in the game.”
Turning to Tuesday’s match against the Dutch, Houghton said the roadshow continues.
“Our game plan is the same against any side. Look, every team that we play in this tournament are competitive. They are very good sides; they didn’t arrive into this tournament by accident they are all good players and good teams,” he said.
“We will be playing our game of cricket the way we have been building up over the last year. We have got a solid seam attack. We have some good spinners; our fielding is good, it’s sharp, and we have a good batting side. We will be doing exactly that. You know Holland is a decent team. We won the last series 2-1 against them. I think they have got six or seven changes from that team to here, so I’m not really sure all the players we know them that well, but this tournament for me is about what we do on the field, and if we do what we do well then, we will see it.”
The former Zimbabwe captain expects an electrifying atmosphere at Harare Sports Club again on Tuesday.
The turnout was fantastic. You know I said that before the tournament started, and I will say it again now. Playing at home is not an advantage because our wickets are peculiar to how we play cricket,” added Houghton.
“The wickets are good; they suit both teams, but our advantage of playing at home is what we saw yesterday (Sunday) the crowd behind us, big crowd noisy, and it puts pressure on the opposition as well, so they were fantastic yesterday, and I hope again they are out again in force tomorrow.”
Spinner, Wellington Masakadza broke the Nepal deadly opening partnership claiming both wickets six balls apart. Richard Ngarava then went on the rampage claiming four wickets thereafter.
