Pakistan series review

[aydee]

Here's the averages:

http://stats.cricinfo.com/ci/engine/rec ... ype=series

Stuart Williams - Most consistent batsmen, averaging 48, good series. Bowling had no impact.
Tatenda Taibu - Not a bad series, 2 fifties, better than most.
Keith Dabengwa - One good innings, one not out. 14 overs, none for 112.... ouch.
Elton Chgumkmbura - Batted too low in my opinion, so had little impact with the bat other than one innings of 40 odd. Reasonable economy rate, but only 4 wickets in 5 games, despite taking the new ball.
Brendon Taylor - Inconsistent again, a couple of solid innings, but nothing match winning. May be of more use as an opener.
Hamilton Masakadza - One goood innings, four failures, contributiong to the all to regular bad starts.
Gary Brent - Good economy rate, under 5 an over. Only 1 wicket at an average of 167 though...
Vusi Sibanda - Encouraging start, but couldn't push on, averaged under 20.
Chamu Chibhabha - Is happiest at three, where he scored a good 50, although that may not best for the team. Had no impact down the order. Took 3 wickets, but conceded over 8 an over...
Ray Price - Excellent economy rate of 4.4 an over, sadly only 5 wickets, but that tally would probably be higher if batsmen had to take more risks against him due to pressure at the other end.
Stuart Matskineyeri - 2 games, 4 runs.
Chris Mpofu - Only 1 wicket, and an economy of 5.7. Not really good enough for an opening bowler.
Prosper Utseya - His miserly offspin was much missed, although his one appearance was very poor by his standards.
Tawanda Mupariwa - One excellent performance, then injury.

[brmtaylor.com admin]

Good post.

What to do with Chibhabha. Over the past year or so he has been moulded into a specialist number three, and it seems he can't bat anywhere else with success. Sean Williams appears to be the better number three though. Maybe Chibhabha will have to reinvent himself as a middle order batsman - he would tear it up playing for Zimbabwe Provinces that is for sure.

Price was excellent. Great series, he is dinkum about cricket. Just watching him on the field, his attitude and body language is good - if we had someone like him that could bowl 150kmh we'd be laughing. I think Ray Price is our sledger - he does it well, without over doing it

Chigumbura is fine at number 7 IMO. On his day, he can come out and slog in the last 10 overs with success. Brainless commentators keep saying Zimbabwe has no "slogger", even Masakadza said after one of the matches "well, we do actually...".

Williams was excellent. Taylor I thought was good, his series was comparable to Taibu's but perhaps a touch better due to the 64 in the Patrons match and the 50 in the final ODI. He should be opener.

Masakadza is not an opener. Move him to number 5.

Sibanda had an off series, should be better next time.

The bowling has a lot to be desired, we need a strike bowler. Chigumbura was okay but didn't take enough wickets. Brent was completely unthreatening. Mupariwa was good but got injured, seemed to be a bit more oomph in his bowling than Brent had. Mpofu has potential but needs to take wickets. Dabengwa is not a bowler.

[zulu]

im dissapointed with Zims bowling, they could of won at least 2 games there from the positions they were in but their bowling atm lacks a fair bit of penetration to put qaulity sides under pressure. On the other hand they can take alot of positves from their batting which i thought was very good by their standards as they passed the 200 mark in every ODI but the last 1 which is impressive.

I think Zims next ODI series should be against a weaker side like bangladesh or Kenya so they can get some wins under their belt and hopefully move up the ODI rankings

[brmtaylor.com admin]

im dissapointed with Zims bowling, they could of won at least 2 games there from the positions they were in but their bowling atm lacks a fair bit of penetration to put qaulity sides under pressure. On the other hand they can take alot of positves from their batting which i thought was very good by their standards as they passed the 200 mark in every ODI but the last 1 which is impressive.

I think Zims next ODI series should be against a weaker side like bangladesh or Kenya so they can get some wins under their belt and hopefully move up the ODI rankings

I agree. I think they should invite Bangladesh over for a few ODI's. In Harare I think they could probably win 3-0.

[zulu]

yes definatly if Zimbabwe keep playing the top sides they are going to loose confidence from being beaten everytime, they need to play Bangladesh because if they could beat them in an ODI series at home that will do them a great deal of good and help them gain confidence for the bigger sides.

[maehara]

Some figures for those who like their stats - Zim players in the batting and bowling Top 100 at the end of the series:

Code: Select all

ODI Batting
                        Pts     Highest Ranking
45  Elton Chigumbura    533     573 v South Africa, 22/08/2007
49  Brendan Taylor      528     579 v Bangladesh, 04/08/2006
59  Vusi Sibanda        499     525 v Pakistan, 20/01/2008
66  Sean Williams       476     479 v Pakistan, 30/01/3008
69  Stuart Matsikenyeri 469     501 v West Indies, 02/12/2007
76  Chamu Chibhabha     450     459 v West Indies, 30/11/2007
77  Hamilton Mazakadza  444     476 v Pakistan, 24/01/2008


ODI Bowling
                        Pts     Highest Ranking
31  Prosper Utseya      564     651 v Bangladesh, 06/08/2006
61  Tawanda Mupariwa    469     486 v Bangladesh, 02/08/2006
65  Gary Brent          464     513 v Bangladesh, 25/11/2001
87  Anthony Ireland     419     453 v Bangladesh, 10/02/2007
93  Edward Rainsford    411     472 v Bangladesh, 13/10/2006
94  Elton Chigumbura    410     412 v Pakistan, 30/01/2008

Three of the batsmen reaching personal bests this series (Sibanda, Williams and Masakadza), but the bowlers haven't made much progress, other than Chigumbura. Price isn't listed - he was out of the international game for long enough to have dropped out of the rankings, and while he's played enough ODIs since returning to be listed, it'll be a while before he's fully-weighted again, so no ranking for him yet (players with only a few games to their name get a percentage of the ranking points that someone with a full weighting would).