Zimbabwe Cricket suffered a routine loss in the subcontinent after they lost by 8 wickets to Bangladesh in the Tri-Series opener.
Graeme Cremer, the Zimbabwe captain , was left blaming lack of game time after the Chevrons produced a woeful batting performance.
“Definitely not enough runs on the board. We didn’t mind batting first, but we needed 240. Raza was decent, so was PJ. The lack of ODI’s have hurt us a little, but we do have some experienced players. Guess it never helps when you don’t play enough.
“Sometimes it’s too late to learn in a short tournament like this. We are going to Dubai after this series, and then the World Cup Qualifiers at home. This is what we are looking ahead at. For the next game, we’ll look to get to 40-45 in the first ten overs and then see where we go from there. We’ll be better in the next game,” he said .
After being put in to bat first, within the first three balls of their innings the tourists had already lost the key wickets of Solomon Mire and Craig Ervine for ducks, leaving them reeling at two for two.
Zimbabwe failed to recover from that setback, although Sikandar Raza impressively tried to resist with a fighting 52 off 99 deliveries before they were bundled out for 170 in 49 overs.
Peter Moor was the only other Zimbabwe batsman to make a notable contribution with the willow as he chipped in with 33, while the veterans Brendan Taylor and Hamilton Masakadza could only contribute 24 and 15 respectively.
Shakib al Hasan, rocked the Heath Streak coached side with his double strike in the first over of their innings, finished as the best Bangladesh bowler with three for 43 in 10 overs.
There were also two scalps each for Rubel Hossain and Mustafizur Rahman.
“It was a disappointing start to lose two wickets in the first over . . . it was not an easy wicket – maybe 220 to 230 was probably a par-score on that – so trying to recover from that was tough,” Streak said after the match.
“Sikandar Raza, good effort with his fifty, got out at a crucial stage where I thought, if he had batted through to near the end, we might have gotten to the 200 mark which would have given us a little bit more to try and defend.” added Streak.
Tamim Iqbal struck an unbeaten 84 to wrap up the comfortable victory for the hosts with 129 balls to spare.
Raza shone again, this time with the ball, as he claimed the only two Bangladesh wickets that fell in the game.
In the next match scheduled for Wednesday at the same venue, Zimbabwe will face Sri Lanka.
