[Match Thread] South Africa v Zimbabwe (World Cup)

[CrimsonAvenger]

Pretty miserable stuff post Hammy's wicket. Well, a couple of things done a little differently and we would have had a better target to chase. Ordinary stuff in the last 10 overs or so.

[brmtaylor.com admin]

Silly shot from Ervine. The game is gone, the goal from here should just be to accumulate runs. Makes it hard to do that now we have a bowler at the crease.

[foreignfield]

Pretty miserable stuff post Hammy's wicket. Well, a couple of things done a little differently and we would have had a better target to chase. Ordinary stuff in the last 10 overs or so.

Yes, it feels like the old Zimbabwe again, but let's not loose heart, we were on top of SA for 60-70 overs out of 100. And we are going to loose by a rather smaller margin than SL and England yesterday.

[foreignfield]

Batting out the overs would be good from here, but with Chatara and Kamungazi that's going to be difficult.

[brmtaylor.com admin]

There's a lot to take heart from. If we put in this same effort against a team like West Indies or Pakistan the result could be completely different; most teams don't bat as deep as SA and our batting has been alright today (lost a lot of wickets due to slogging).

The only thing I was really disappointed with was the death bowling. Dish up those full tosses to anyone and they'll disappear over the fence.

Speaking of slogging, I really hope we just bat out the overs now. At 8 down and 5 overs still to go, there's nothing to be gained from mindless slogging. Sure if it's there to be hit throw the kitchen sink at it, but tactically it's much smarter to just bat out the overs, add a few more runs to the total and negate the NRR of SA's total as much as possible. If we could get to 280 or 290 that would be great.

and and to Mire this over. Without taking risks. Perfect batting - and in hindsight it shows that he should have been sent out before Williams.

[jaybro]

Well I've enjoyed the match but yes you are right in saying a couple of things done differently and we could have won but all in all the boys have shown enough to make me think we can knock off the Windies or Pakis ......

Lets see Mire hit a few more into the stands ......

[brmtaylor.com admin]

Huge from Mire

Why is it that we could figure out before the innings even started that promoting someone like Mire would be a good move, yet in the match situation nobody in the dressing room thought it might be a good idea.

[grant]

....

[brmtaylor.com admin]

Zimbabwe's NRR: -1.240
Which is not too bad. England's is -2.220 and Sri Lanka's is -1.960.

Let's hope SA smash the likes of WI, Pakistan and Ireland.

Masakadza and Taylor were amongst the runs which is a good sign. Chatara and Panyangara were good (except at the very end), Kamungozi kept things tight which against a team like SA is very promising. A lot to like about what we saw today, they just got too many runs ultimately. I still reckon we could have got 300.

[CrimsonAvenger]

Yeah, not the end of the world, we did way better than expected against might SA. Some things that could have been done differently:

1. Chigs must have brought Taffy on after 40 overs to complete his spell instead of Mire. They went after Williams doesn't mean they would have gone after Kamungozi. And the returns till that point definitely suggested the latter deserved to finish his spell.

2. Hindsight, Hammy must have bowled more overs in the 20-35 overs range keeping things quiet, given the nature of the wicket. Keeping Raza on just because of the theoretical offie vs lefties did not make much sense when he was going for easy runs. Chigs bowled one over too many as well. He was clearly not on top of his bowling form and after the wicket, should have stopped bowling.

3. Mire (or Chigs) should have come in ahead of at least Ervine. Would not have been a bad ploy to send Mire ahead of Taylor too, when Chamu got out.

4. All said and done, out bowling looks little thin for sure. I would gamble with picking Mupariwa for Ervine in the next match, although, I would be perfectly fine with retaining this XI too.

Ervine's catch would be one of the highlights of this World Cup for sure, so too would be Panyangara's celebration