[Match thread] Zimbabwe XI vs Bangladeshis (Tour match)

[warwolf]

Are any of you at Sports Club?

I keep on hearing that this is a bad pitch and I have withheld my comment until verifying that fact, and people on the ground whose opinions I can relatively trust have told me that the pitch is fine. All that's happened is that substandard players have rocked up on it!

Zim is fielding very good and motivated seamers against a Bangladeshi order which has grown accustomed to sub-100 scores of late, while the entire Zim batting line-up, bar the rusty Taibu is pathetic. Don't forget, few bowlers if any in Zim can swing the ball better than Meth so I can imagine the trouble the Bangladeshi batsmen are facing, and if a fired up Jarvis is cranking it up then fireworks are in the offing.

No excuses guys. Jetlag or pitch! What we are witnessing is evident demonstration of world class club cricketers with a rush of adrenalin but guised in their respective national colours. That statement applies to the bulk of players there at least. You'll be hard-pressed to disagree. If our first team batting order was there we'd have something bearable on display. I dare say an innings win would be on the cards.

Let's see

[brmtaylor.com admin]

Zim is fielding very good and motivated seamers against a Bangladeshi order which has grown accustomed to sub-100 scores of late, while the entire Zim batting line-up, bar the rusty Taibu is pathetic. Don't forget, few bowlers if any in Zim can swing the ball better than Meth so I can imagine the trouble the Bangladeshi batsmen are facing, and if a fired up Jarvis is cranking it up then fireworks are in the offing.

These wouldn't be the same very good and motivated seamers that managed a grand total of 3 wickets between them in the First Class games against Australia A would they? I'd like to think they all turned the corner overnight, but it's probably not the case. You just have to look at the number of bowleds and lbws to tell that this isn't a great pitch and probably behaving pretty unpredictably and two-paced.

Can anyone confirm this is being played at Harare Sports Club? I thought the warm-up was being played at the academy ground.

[maehara]

Cricinfo scorecard & the itinerary I got pre-series both say HSC.

[Dr_Situ(ZimFanatic)]

5th wkt gone. I am loving it!

[maehara]

5th wkt gone. I am loving it!

::notices today's birthdays on the front page::

Does it count as a decent birthday present for you?

[foreignfield]

You can't have it all, a nice easy net for your own struggling batsmen and a lively pitch for the opposition. I still believe it's good thinking to deny the Bangladeshi batsmen quality time in the middle. We'll never know, but chances are if the powers that be had asked for the most docile pitch possible Ervine and Mawoyo would not have scored big tons anyway, but the Bangladeshis might have.

At the rate this match is progressing there's plenty of time left for someone to stand up in the second innings. Waller?

[hhm]

Credit where it's due BRM and this is Bangladesh we're talking about, not Warner, Hughes, Finch, Ferguson etc. They've got SAH and Rahim now, to me their most sensible batsmen, more so than Tamim. Let's hope their stand can disprove all these pitch 'allegations'.

What do you think about Prosper's captaincy? Chatara might have taken two good wickets, but I'm not too sure a spell of just 5 overs each for Jarvis & Meth was the right move. Modern bowlers are spoilt! Bring on the old days when guys could run in 15+ overs on the trot! Particularly the WI legends. Some guys still bowl out in ODIs, whole 10 overs non-stop. Cameorn Cuffy did that with devastating effect against us not too long ago. Except on that occasion both sets of batsmen were a mirror image of what we're witnessing in this game, or should I say Streaky woudn't be outdone by Cuffy.

[warwolf]

These wouldn't be the same very good and motivated seamers that managed a grand total of 3 wickets between them in the First Class games against Australia A would they? I'd like to think they all turned the corner overnight, but it's probably not the case. You just have to look at the number of bowleds and lbws to tell that this isn't a great pitch and probably behaving pretty unpredictably and two-paced.

Can anyone confirm this is being played at Harare Sports Club? I thought the warm-up was being played at the academy ground.

One of the journalists accompanying our team confirmed it today's news paper that the wicket is two paced.

[brmtaylor.com admin]

That's fair enough hhm and I do see your point, but under normal circumstances I wouldn't expect Bangladesh to lose 15 wickets in 80 odd overs against Zimbabwe's best bowlers let alone the second string attack.

Good point about bowling 10 overs straight in ODIs too. It's a tactic I'd like to see Zimbabwe employ. For instance, in the A team series there were one or two occasions where Mpofu had only gone for about 15 runs or so after 7 or 8 overs. I see the logic behind wanting to hold him back for a short spell at the death, but while he's bowling so economically, "a bird in the hand..." as they say

[jimbo]

How many of the the zimbabwe 11 playing in this match will be in the test match 4 maybe 5? In that respect its a good performance by the second string players