[Match Thread] Zimbabwe v Afghanistan 3rd ODI

[CrimsonAvenger]

Having slept over the loss, I am convinced that this rates as one of our most idiotic losses ever. More so from the point of view of all those naysayers who come out with all guns blazing as soon as we slip in front of an associate. Akash Chopra, for example, tweeted something to the effect of condemning Zim's abilities even at home as soon as the match was over. I'm sure he did not follow the entire match and has not bothered to look at the scorelines of the first two matches, or the fact that we beat Pakistan in our last home test. All those comments would be as ill informed as our skipper's bowling changes yesterday, but we are not in a position to defend ourselves after being publicly disrobed.

S Masakadza bowled badly - no wickets up front. The same can be said of Chatara.

Coming to the captaincy decisions, even if we consider most of the frequent bowling changes as an attempt to unsettle them, these 4 decisions are unpardonable and any school kid would have got them right:

1. Giving away 26 runs in 5 overs in powerplay overs is not the end of the world when a team begins positively. But with both the aggressors who did the damage out, shouldn't Chatara have gotten another spell before being thrown to the deep end in the 49th over when pretty much things had gone out of hand?

2. Shingi's first spell was expensive. 19 in 2 overs. But second spell was 7 in 2 overs. Why did that not give confidence to continue him in that spell, or go for another one in the batting powerplay? Again, getting a go in the 50th over with 7 runs to defend, you can't really do much.

3. Williams was on song, beating the bat regularly in that spell of his, according to the Cricinfo commentator. He did not get to bowl his last over in the 46th, instead, Kamungozi was given the ball, which initiated the massacre. If Williams had continued that spell, he would have added another quiet over in the 46th, and that would have increased the pressure on the Afghans. Who knows, they could have even lost a wicket in the last over of Williams. As we saw when he came back again in the 48th over, he was not that expensive, but the horse had already bolted by then.

4. Underbowling Hamilton was a big mistake. He got his over very late and only one over at that. These associate bludgeoners, the likes of Rizwan Cheema of Canada, have no idea how to handle medium pace bowlers who bowl wicket-to-wicket with immaculate accuracy, and throw their wicket away trying too much. And we had seen Hammy succeed in the previous match.

I remember Hamilton deputising for Prosper in Bangladesh, going for Chibhabha in the death overs and losing the match instead of probably bowling himself. Probably the debut match of Nasir Hossain. I thought that was idiotic. This one beats that by leaps and bounds.

[ZIMDOGGY]

we really need to work on the attack.

ive been of the view for a while that Chatara aside, we have no effective bowlers.

Price would hae been great here.

[eugene]

we really need to work on the attack.

ive been of the view for a while that Chatara aside, we have no effective bowlers.

Price would hae been great here.

Great to have you back Dogg! Seems like a while since you last posted.

[ZIMDOGGY]

Thanks Eugene,
I still read daily but its all the same crap, no offence to anyone. And never good news out of ZC.

Theres only so many “who is our quickest bowler threads” and “who are our greatest players in the 90s” style threads you can take every month.

Q- How many Zimbabwe Cricket supporters does it take to change a lightbulb?

A-None- they will just all stand around it talking about how good the old ones were.

[CrimsonAvenger]

Q- How many Zimbabwe Cricket supporters does it take to change a lightbulb?

A-None- they will just all stand around it talking about how good the old ones were.

That's because the guy who is in charge of the light bulb decides to showcase his passion by throwing it at a helpless young and upcoming cricketer instead of plugging it in / giving it to those who can. He'll get two more bulbs for that act of bravery, which he'll use to illuminate his household.

[zimbos_05]

Havent been on here in a while. Had a trip to zim and then busy with work and so on. Anyway, after two good wins, very disappointing to lose this. Obviously the selectors just do willy nilly and give anyone they feel like a cap, not really bothered about how it affects the make up of the team or anything like that.

Shingi should not have bowled the last over. We made this mistake against New Zealand as well of not being adaptive to the situations our team is faced with. It speaks very much of everything is pre empted before we step out on the field, and as such can not really adapt to the situations around us. On the basis of the match status, Chatara should have got the last over. Shingi only had 4 overs to his name before the last one, and he went for a tonking. Chatara went for slightly less, and his pace would have been much harder to dispatch for a lower order batsman.

Taylor as the captain needs to learn these things and be able to adapt to the situation on the field, not just throw on any bowler when it isnt working (Raza, Hami, Nathan) and should be able to learn things such as adjusting the field to stem the flow, or changing bowlers ends, or changing the bowling partnerships, not just throwing someone knew and hoping for the best. Very obvious to see that Shingi was kept for the end despite his very poor showing.

Series like these are the ones we need to learn, and develop in. Hopefully Taylor spends some good time talking to Clarke, and AB about the finer details of being a captain.

[Jemisi]

Ok, so either Taylor just had a shocker or...what?

Could he have been demonstrating how crap some of these selections are to the Hhms of the world?

[brmtaylor.com admin]

I'm not defending the bowling changes, I didn't agree with them throughout the innings and I don't agree with them now. But we didn't bat well enough and we didn't bowl well enough. It was Afghanistan's game to lose from about the 35th over of the Zimbabwean innings onwards.

[jimmylesaint]

We lost because of the batsmen not making enough runs. Hammy giving away his wicket for an easy catch, Williams the same, Taylor running himself out.
We lost because the bowlers were impotent. Some mediocre to poor balls amazingly getting a mishit and out.
We lost because the fielders were shit, at least 3 simple catches dropped.
Oh and the run out of the Afghan wasn't out-.
We lost not because we are incapable of beating the Afghans- we have shown that already. But we lost because we(the team) mentally started with arrogance and complacency- the non-batters swanning around preening themselves, reading newspapers and taking little interest in the game.
I can safely say that tomorrow i expect us to be beaten comprehensively