Tri-Nation Tournament in Bangladesh
Zimbabwe Cricket captain , Graeme Cremer says his charges showed more character in their 12 run win over Sri Lanka than in the first game of the Tri-series currently underway in Bangladesh.
Zimbabwe produced a nail biting win over the Lions Sri Lanka to move second on the log, behind hosts Bangladesh
After the match, Cremer said heaped praise on man of the match, Sikanda Raza, who produced an all round performance to carry the team home..
“We could not have hoped for anything better with the bat,. Sikandar came good with bat and ball. It shows the character of the team to bounce back after the beating in the last game.
“At one point, we thought 260 would be a par score. We know the quality Sri Lanka have in their batting so credit to our bowlers as well. We now play Sri Lanka again in the next game. It will be interesting to see how Sri Lanka vs Bangladesh goes.” said Cremer.
In the 40th over of Sri Lanka’s chase, Thisara Perera smacked Zimbabwe captain Graeme Cremer for 17 runs. Sri Lanka suddenly needed to score at less than six an over to win the game, and for the first time, the situation was under their control.
In the next over, Sikandar Raza gave away only three runs, breaking Perera’s flow and making him wait until the 45th over to find his next big hit.
Raza was in the thick of things for most of the 98.1 overs of this contest. At one point, it was hard for the TV cameras to peel away from him. Apart from Perera’s catch, he took another at short midwicket to get rid of Angelo Mathews to give Blessing Muzarabani his maiden ODI wicket.
Raza also removed Kusal Perera, batting on 80, when it looked like he was about to make the 291-run chase a comfortable one for Sri Lanka. Zimbabwe had set this competitive target thanks, again, to Raza, who scored an unbeaten 81, with many of his boundaries coming in the slog overs.
Losing captain Angelo Mathews, blamed lack of concentration from his team on the loss.
“We were scrappy from the outset, gave away too many runs in the first 10 overs.They (Zimbabwe) had the wickets in the last 10 overs to capitalise on it.
“The wicket settled a little bit after the dew came in, but we also had wickets in hand. The run rate was pretty good, but we just kept losing wickets. Thisara was fantastic with bat and ball and Kusal batted brilliantly. Unfortunately the others couldn’t convert that. Lots of positives. We can certainly improve and come back harder next time.” he noted.
Zimbabwe will face the same opponent in their next match where they will be hoping to qualify for the finals.
