Afghanistan celebrate taking a wicket in the 5th ODI played against Zimbabwe
Sports Reporter
ZIMBABWE cricket hit a new low and their credibility continued on the wane in the past fortnight when the Chevrons nose-dived to a galling one-day international (ODI) and Twenty20 International series losses to lowly Afghanistan at Queens Sports Club in Bulawayo.
Afghanistan made history by becoming the first Associate nation to win a bilateral ODI series against a Test side when they shocked Zimbabwe 3-2 after coming from behind twice. To prove that their ODI series win wasn’t a fluke, the Afghans sealed another historic 2-0 T20 series victory to leave the Chevrons reeling.
Without taking anything away from Afghanistan, the Chevrons’ performance was a disgraceful mess from start to finish as the Zimbabwe players looked callow and clueless. The defeat went beyond the realms of simple humiliation and entered that of a nightmare, and it would be difficult to recover from it.
The few fans that gathered the courage to watch the calamitous T20 series rightfully shook their heads in disbelief as they watched top order batsmen Chamu Chibhabha, Sikandar Raza, Sean Williams and Richmond Mutumbami getting in and out, and instead of putting pressure on the Afghan bowlers, they put it on themselves by failing to really take off.
Zimbabwe looked a fearful side, especially in the T20 after losing the ODI series. Of course, the fans were not expecting the Chevrons to blitz Afghanistan with some hostile bowling and swashbuckling stroke-playing with the bat, but they expected the team to restore some pride by winning the two T20 games.
Afghanistan coach, the legendary Pakistan batsman Inzamam-ul-Haq, credited the passion of his team as the reason behind their win. He said his boys applied what we are doing in practice sessions and that they also wanted to win, which was probably the difference with Zimbabwe. They didn’t really look like a team that wanted to win.
Surely Zimbabwean cricket is in serious decline and unless something drastic is done urgently, it will soon drop to the same levels as rugby, which has become a shelf sport as it has virtually vanished from the national radar.
The supreme sadness of it all is that our game continues to go from weakness to more weakness, and by struggling to beat affiliate members, our Test status now just seems symbolic.
At the present moment, no top Test nation wants to play against Zimbabwe and unless we start convincingly beating minnows like Afghanistan, the status quo will remain and we will have none but ourselves to blame for it.