Butcher pleasantly surprised by Zim

[maehara]

http://www.cricket365.com/zimbabwe/stor ... sed-by-Zim

Coach Alan Butcher has admitted that his Zimbabwe side have exceeded his expectations during the current tri-series with India and Sri Lanka, in which the hosts have reached the final.

Zimbabwe have won three of their four matches in the round robin stage, twice getting the better of a lacklustre Indian side before beating Sri Lanka by eight wickets in Harare on Monday.

Butcher had spoken before the tournament about his hopes that Zimbabwe would give a good account of themselves and "maybe win a few games" as they look to turn the corner after a tough few years.

Yet two of Zimbabwe's three victories have been won by a comfortable margin - last week they chased down India's total inside 40 overs to acquire a bonus point, and on Monday they beat Sri Lanka handsomely despite allowing Tillakeratne Dilshan and Upul Tharanga to get off to a flying start with the bat.

Asked whether his young side had surprised him, Butcher replied: "Yes, to be honest. I was aware that the odds were shortened because of the sides that India and Sri Lanka selected, but I still thought that they would provide good opposition - there's over a billion people in India, so that's going to add up to quite a lot of cricketers.

"The pleasing thing is that we've been much, much more than competitive in the three games that we've won - we've won them convincingly. I've said to the boys in the dressing room that today we've won a skirmish and the real battle is on Wednesday, and we've got to make sure that we're on top of our game for that, because now having got a taste of it we want to win some more."

At the heart of Zimbabwe's renaissance has been Brendan Taylor, who tops the run-scoring charts in the series having hit two half-centuries and a century.

Butcher revealed that Taylor was in poor physical shape when he first took over the coaching reins at the beginning of April, but is now getting his reward after two months of hard work in terms of fitness and technical tweaks.

"My first impression, and I'm sure he won't be too disappointed telling in me you this, is that he was overweight and he needed to get back into shape," said Butcher after Taylor hit a career best 119 not out. "He looked as if he had talent but perhaps he'd not worked as hard as he could on his technique in the past. He has done that since we were in the West Indies and when we were back here. He's worked hard and he's getting his rewards, which is what normally happens."

Meanwhile Sri Lanka coach Trevor Bayliss admitted his disappointment at a batting collapse that saw his side slump from 122 for none to 236 all out, with no-one able to back up captain Dilshan (78) and opening partner Tharanga (69). That allowed Zimbabwe to take control of the match and chase down the target with 13 balls remaining, and Bayliss felt Sri Lanka's inexperience had been laid bare.

"Good or bad, that was the decision to bring some of our younger players here," he said. "Obviously we'd like to win on Wednesday, but the overall picture was to find out whether some of these younger blokes, probably more than anything, had it mentally. Today I think that's where we let ourselves down. I mean none for 120 and you lose 10 for 114, that's not what you're looking for when you want guys to step up and play against some of the best teams in the world. That's an area that the younger players on this tour will have to rectify if they want to play international cricket."

Most disappointing was the manner in which Sri Lanka's batsmen got out, with the majority being caught in the deep at times when big shots were uncalled for. Taylor took three catches at deep backward square leg, while Charles Coventry caught Tharanga at long-off.

"We can play a lot better than we did," Bayliss continued. "When a lot of your batters get out caught on the fence or caught slogging down some deep man's throat then you only have yourselves to blame, so I'd like to think that our decision making from our batters will be a lot better because if we do that then we'll make it a lot harder for Zimbabwe to take wickets."

[sloandog]

I hope we kick their A***