It’s been a period that Zimbabwe has not shown any memorable or outstanding performance in any international Twenty20 matches. The last time they performed noteworthy was at 2007 against Australia in World T20 when they knocked out the team, including Adam Gilchrist, Ricky Ponting, Matthew Hayden and Brett Lee. Seven years have gone away and Zimbabwe could not register any other victory.
Zimbabwe last won in 2007 and since then they have played five matches in three tournaments and could not register a single victory. They played their last International cricket in September of last year when they hosted Pakistan. Since then they are suffering from an acute financial crisis. Though Zimbabwe Cricket Union (ZCU) is a full time member of the International Cricket Council (ICC) with Test and One day international status but the precondition of the cricket in the country presents differently.
If they are to designate them in the flow of International Cricket again, they have to draw a distinction in preliminary round in order to survive to the next draw.
It’s not a position a team that considers itself as part of the top-level of international cricket wants to be in, and you have to hear the determination in Brendan Taylor‘s voice to realize why. Skipper Taylor said after reaching Chittagong with the full squad, “We have to qualify; we are not taking any team lightly. As (Hong Kong captain) Jamie Atkinson said, the gap between associates and affiliates is reducing and it’s beneficial to see world cricket developing. It can be anyone’s game on the day.”
In recent times, Zimbabwe Cricket is going through a financial crisis. The players had called strikes as they were not being paid properly for last few times. Two international series against Sri Lanka and Pakistan has been held over due to this economic fix. The intra national condition of the country got paralysed. In spite of that the cricket team now just wants to concentrate on the forthcoming matches.
Their cricket war for survival is going to pop up from the following week, on March 17 at Bangladesh, where they must have to prove them to stay in the big boys’ club. Though they are not in touch with the matches against any big nation, the only matches they have played are against Bangladesh A team. But skipper Taylor seems confident with his squad. “Our preparation has been excellent and we are looking forward to the challenge.” He sounded enraptured.
The reason for their confidence is that the condition of Bangladesh is very accustomed to them. They played 33 ODIs there, the second most outside their family. Some players in the squad such as Sean Williams, Hamilton Masakadza took part in the Dhaka Premier League (DPL) and the Bangladesh Premier League too.
These advantages can add up something close to the mental status of Zimbabwe cricketers, Taylor hopes. He stated, “We’ve been here a number of times, so we are conversant with the conditions, it even requires a moment of getting used to, especially from where we come from but we had a good start with a sound win over Bangladesh A. They had some good players in there so hopefully we can take some momentum from there.”
Immediately that the Zimbabwe team who consists of a very few spinners and some good batsmen, they require to show the cricketing world that they still can play.