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Utseya: Zimbabwe must perform in Bangladesh
The Associated PressPublished: January 3, 2009





HARARE, Zimbabwe: Zimbabwe captain Prosper Utseya acknowledges his squad is under pressure on its tour of Bangladesh to prove it deserves to be among the top-level international teams.

The Africans flew out Saturday for the tour. They will play a three-day warm-up match against an academy side from Tuesday, a three-team limited-overs series also involving Sri Lanka from Jan. 10, and a three-game one-day series with the hosts from Jan. 19.

Zimbabwe hasn't played a test match since 2005 because the team isn't strong enough to compete and its one-day performances have also come under scrutiny. In November, the team lost 5-0 at home to a below-par Sri Lanka team.

"We are currently out of the test arena and, as we speak, I hear some people are saying we mustn't even be playing ODIs," Utseya said. "This is distressing. We need to go there and show that we still belong here. Our aim is to reach the tri-series final and win the series against Bangladesh.

"The pressure is on us against Bangladesh because we should be beating them. Previous Zimbabwe teams used to beat them quite easily. We recently lost 5-0 to Sri Lanka but against Bangladesh the pressure is different. We are sort of in the same league, Nos. 9 and 10 on the ODI rankings, and when you play another lowly team there is always pressure to win."

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"The guys are excited to be touring again," Utseya said. "We had a good Christmas break and a satisfying training afterwards. We are all positive going into the tour."

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Good post,Jimbo.Zimbabwe really has to show some promise in the Bangladesh tour.Zimbabwe is now 11th in the ICC ODI ranking,Ireland(10th)is also ahead of them.The future of Zimbabwean cricket is much depending in it like their return in the test arena,how much they deserve playing in the ODIs after the exodus of so many talented players etc.

Taibu will be the key against Bangladesh.

It's hard to know whether Taibu is arrogant or confident, or both. Reverse sweeping Mendis, for example. And then saying in a post match interview that it's hard for some of his teammates to keep up because "I'm faster between wickets than them"... a nice backdoor brag there Tatenda.

The thing is, arrogance is what is needed to beat Bangladesh. Price and Taibu are the only two members of the squad who will remember what it felt like to hammer Bangladesh. In 2004, Zimbabwe won a Test against them by about 200 runs. Hopefully Price and especially Taibu use those memories to spur them on and really demoralise Bangladesh. A thumping win on January 10 will set the mood for the rest of the tour, it will give Zimbabwe a huge edge in the subsequent 3 ODI series.

Ya,Price and Taibu is the main key player of Zimbabwe what means 'THE STAR'.There is a lot of difference between the old Zimbabwe and todays Zimbabwe.I can remember,once Bangladesh used to regard Zimbabwe as one of the 'Australia',that team had Streak,Ervine,Blignaut,G Flower and some other greats.Zimbabwe should target not only Bangladesh but also Sri Lanka too.Sri Lanka did struggle against Bangladesh at times.Key players like Price,Taibu and young players like Williams,Mupariwa,Waller need to fire up.