1st Test | Zimbabwe V/s Pakistan | Harare

[Rajkumar Sharma]

Zimbabwe Test squad:

Sean Williams (captain), Regis Chakabva, Tendai Chisoro, Tanaka Chivanga, Luke Jongwe, Roy Kaia, Kevin Kasuza, Wellington Masakadza, Prince Masvaure, Tarisai Musakanda, Blessing Muzarabani, Richard Ngarava, Victor Nyauchi, Milton Shumba, Brendan Taylor, Donald Tiripano.

Pakistan Test squad:

Babar Azam (C), Mohammad Rizwan (vc), Abdullah Shafique, Abid Ali, Azhar Ali, Faheem Ashraf, Fawad Alam, Haris Rauf, Hasan Ali, Imran Butt, Mohammad Nawaz, Nauman Ali, Sajid Khan, Salman Ali Agha, Sarfaraz Ahmed, Saud Shakeel (subject to fitness), Shaheen Shah Afridi, Shahnawaz Dahani, Tabish Khan and Zahid Mahmood

[Rajkumar Sharma]

Pakistan is only that top test team against which Zimbabwe had taste of some success after Bangladesh. Out of 17 tests, Zim won 3 and lost 10 with 4 draws. Alistar Campbell is the one under whose captaincy Zimbabwe did that magical stuff of beating strongest Pakistan side in Pakistan and win the test series 1-0 back in 1997

Other two wins came in Zimbabwe one in 1995 Harare, where Streak's 9 wickets & Grant Flower double ton gave Zimbabwe edge over Pakistan and the other test win came in same venue back in 2013 where Hamilton Masakadza, Brian Vitori and Chatara delivered for Zimbabwe

[Jemisi]

Umm, India?

[Rajkumar Sharma]

Umm, India?

Yes

[secretzimbo]

Interestingly, Brendan Taylor was at the photoshoot with the series trophy today instead of Williams. So it looks like BT will be captaining the side tomorrow and presumably Williams is injured (again)?

We are going to be very very very light in the batting department.

Edit: Now confirmed https://twitter.com/ZimCricketv/status/ ... 0781181959

[secretzimbo]

Masvaure
Kasuza
Musakanda
Taylor
Shumba
R Kaia
Chakabva
Tripano
Chisoro
Blessing
Nyauchi

That is a poor batting line-up.

[tej_27]

I so hope we had full strength sqaud with Williams ervine raza Taylor we could have surely beaten Pakistan in one game

[tgk]

Well lads, no Williams, no Ervine, no Raza, no Burl even, if we can take the game to Day 5 or the fourth innings, that'll be a big feat.

Masvaure
Kasuza
Musakanda
Taylor (c)
Kaia
Shumba
Chakabva (wk)
Tiripano
Chisoro
Nyauchi
Muzarabani

Looks quite shaky this lineup, lot will depend on how well Blessing and Victor do, cause the batting line-up is not exactly confidence inspiring. Kinda feel like maybe bringing Wesley into the squad to shore up the batting a little would help. Then again, 6 batsmen, a keeper bat, 2 bowling all rounders isn't toooo bad. Hoping that Kaia and Shumba can have good games and really give the selectors a headache. Going in with absolutely 0 expectations, so anything positive will be nice.

[TapsC2]

We are in serious trouble. I’m not even going to be optimistic here

[Kriterion_BD]

The batting does look very weak and inexperienced, but ZIM have shown a lot of fight over the last few years from unexpected sources.