DONALD Tiripano’s hard fought half-century failed to save Zimbabwe from a 252-run defeat in the one-off Test against Bangladesh at Harare Sports Club this afternoon.
The inexperienced home side batting lineup started the day with a herculean task of batting out the whole day to save the Test match with seven wickets in hand.
Dion Myers was gifted life first by Liton Das, the wicketkeeper, when he could not hold on to a chest-high outside edge regulation catch.
The debutant got another life when he chipped a straight drive back to Taskin Ahmed, but the fast bowler could not hold on to the tough chance in his follow-through.
Tiripano and Myers managed to see out the first hour of the day and took the team to the first drinks break of the day without losing a wicket.
However, soon after the break, Myers lost his concentration and chipped an easy catch to midwicket off the bowling of Mehidy Hasan.
After Myers’ demise, the well-known secret in international cricket was laid bare again, that without Sikandar Raza, Sean Williams and Craig Ervine, Zimbabwe has a soft underbelly.
Zimbabwe batting collapsed once again on a flat batting wicket that did not offer much turn for the spinners or lateral movement for the fast bowlers. Timycen Maruma, Roy Kaia and Regis Chakabva were dismissed inside a combined 11 deliveries, leaving Lalchand Rajput and his technical team with more questions than answers from now on.
It seems like Zimbabwe is not learning very fast from their past games against Afghanistan and Pakistan, where they have been in similar situations but continue to capitulate like a deck of cards.
Maruma and Kaia recorded a pair in the match, making it difficult for the team to save the match.
Tiripano, who was sent in as the night watchman last night, shamed all the batters after him by the way he batted, proving that the wicket was not a minefield but a good one for batting. He was unfortunate to be given out caught behind when the ball clearly brushed the thigh pad on its way to the keeper.
If you cannot win a Test match, do not lose it, and there are many ways of doing it; one of them is batting time.
The Chevrons needed to see out 90 overs of the day broken down into 30 overs per session.
Kaia, Chakabva and Maruma, Zimbabwe middle-order batters, faced 11 balls between them when batting out overs was key to saving the match.
Compare that to the bowlers’ Victor Nyauchi, Blessing Muzarabani and Richard Ngarava, who saw out 132 balls between them which effectively is 22 overs, eight overs short of batting a third of the overs Zimbabwe needed to bat out to earn a draw.
This means if some of the middle order batsmen had applied themselves on the crease, Zimbabwe could have easily saved the match.
Kaia, who was playing in his third Test, now has four ducks in six innings and has been dismissed four times lbw. In international cricket, your weakness is found out and exploited. He needs to work on his feet moment and how he shuffles across in front of the stumps.
He may get another chance to add another cap to his three, but you may have the feeling that this is probably curtains for Maruma’s red-ball career.
The hosts will look at various critical stages of the game that they failed to press home the advantage. They had Bangladesh on ropes at 132 for six but could not finish them off.
A record ninth-wicket partnership of 191 runs between Mahmudullah and Taskin Ahmed in Bangladesh’s first innings took the game further away from Zimbabwe.
In their batting, Zimbabwe could not capitalise on Takudzwanashe Kaitano’s marathon knocks in both innings and Brendan Taylor’s quickfire half-centuries in both innings too.
In the post-match interview, the Chevrons skipper bemoaned his team lack of a killer instinct and failure to seize the big moments.
“You’ve got to seize the important moments, and we didn’t do that. I got out at the wrong times, left some runs out there. Credit to Kaitano, on debut. It was down to being in good positions and throwing that away,” said Taylor.
This was Bangladesh’s fifth victory on the road and second in Zimbabwe. Winning captain Monimul Haque was just happy to have won.
“Whether home or away, a win is always a proud thing for me. When juniors contribute, it really looks good. When we were in trouble, the partnership between Riyad Bhai and Taskin was crucial,” he said.
