[WT20 Match Thread] Ireland v Zimbabwe

[syedmahm]

Wishing Zim very good luck for the match. Stay positive. I would like to see a one sided match in ZIM's favour. Sylhet pitch seemed to be helping the pace bowling than that of the spin which favour Zim more.

[tawac]

Zimbabwe going to make a lot of people very quite when they take Ireland to the cleaners in this one.

[Detective RDS]

My Zim XI:

1. Hamilton Masakadza
2. Sikandar Raza
3. Brendan Taylor (C+WK)
4. Sean Williams
5. Elton Chigumbura
6. Vusimuzi Sibanda
7. Malcolm Waller
8. Prosper Utseya
9. Shingirai Masakadza
10. Tinashe Panyangara
11. Natsai Mushangwe

All the very best Zimbabwe !

[Kriterion_BD]

Havig said that good to see we are above Bangladesh in seeding.

Pretty sure thats not the case. Seedings for ICC events are usually based off the ICC rankings at some cut off date. ZIM are currently 14th and we're 10th, and I think it was that way around the cutoff time since neither of us have played many T20s recently.

For this WT20, I think the seedings were 10, 15, 11, 14 in Group B and 9, 16, 12, 13 in Group A. Just confirming from the qualifier tournament...yep thats correct.

9 BD
10 ZIM
11 IRE (qualifier champions)
12 AFG (qualifier runner up)
13 NEP (3rd place)
14) UAE (4th)
15) NED (5th)
16) HK

[Kriterion_BD]

I think the Irish are slight to moderate favorites here. They've always done well in world tournies and have a decent spin attack, and so far both games have been dominated by spinners. They have a habit of giant killing and will be spurred on by previous St Patrick's day festivities. ZIM also have a poor record against SLA (Dockrell) and haven't done too well in the subcontinent. That said, Sylhet is supposedly a seamer friendly surface.

This match marks the debut of my hometown ground, Sylhet!

[jaybro]

We have to learn from Bangladesh's performance and attack from the start with the ball and put the Irish under pressure .....

The longer the game stays close the more likely Ireland will win our best chance is to take the game away from them as early as possible ....

[Jemisi]

Wishing Zim very good luck for the match. Stay positive. I would like to see a one sided match in ZIM's favour. Sylhet pitch seemed to be helping the pace bowling than that of the spin which favour Zim more.

Thanks man

[Kriterion_BD]

We have to learn from Bangladesh's performance and attack from the start with the ball and put the Irish under pressure .....

The longer the game stays close the more likely Ireland will win our best chance is to take the game away from them as early as possible ....

We didn't actually attack the Afghans. The pitch had some bounce and turn - unusual for the usually docile Mirpur pitch, but ICC is in charge of pitch preperation now - and we put the ball in the right place. There were no Test style umbrella fields. Afghans simply started slogging from ball #1 and never stopped. I don't think they played a single proper cricket shot in the entire innings! Just cross batted heaves and slogs with some more heaving. They were clearly under pressure to repeat their Asia Cup heroics and forgot the basics which won them that game.

[jaybro]

Yeah i watched the game and yes the Afghanis did play some terrible shots and the pitch played its part but i think Mushy was smart with his bowling changes and field placements. Even though he didn't have slips and close in fielders he still attacked with his bowling changes and the Bangladeshi's took the game away from them before the Afghanis could turn it into a contest, which is totally different to what happened in the Asia cup. Bangladesh didn't really go for the kill or put pressure on the Afghanis which left the match in the balance for too long which in turn led to the result of Afghanistan winning .....

The key to beating the underdogs is to take the game out of reach for them as soon as possible because the longer the game goes the tighter it gets and the underdogs grow in confidence and the favourites start to get tense and mistakes start to happen e.g. 2007 WC Zim v Ireland .....

I cant ever remember an underdog smashing their more fancied opponents they usually win in a tight contest .....

[etoreveyi]

My Zim XI:

1. Hamilton Masakadza
2. Sikandar Raza
3. Brendan Taylor (C+WK)
4. Sean Williams
5. Elton Chigumbura
6. Vusimuzi Sibanda
7. Malcolm Waller
8. Prosper Utseya
9. Shingirai Masakadza
10. Tinashe Panyangara
11. Natsai Mushangwe

All the very best Zimbabwe !

I would prefare this lineup
1.Vusi Sibanda
2. Raza Butt
3. Hamilton Masakadza
4. Brendon Taylor
5. Sean Williams
6. Malcom Waller
7. Elton Chigumbura
8. Proser Usteya
9. Tinanshe Panyangara
10. Mutombotsi/Mushangwe
11. Tendai Chatara

The reason behind this, we can't afford to lose Masakadza early. Its better we build a good foundation. We just tell Vusi to go and attack .