Windhoek (Namibia): Zimbabwe coach Dave Houghton has termed his team’s initial performance in the ICC Men’s T20 World Cup Qualifier Africa Final 2023 as ’embarrassing.’ He’s encouraging his players to swiftly move past this showing and refocus on getting back to winning ways.
Houghton was aiming for a top-two finish to snatch one of the two remaining places in next year’s ICC Men’s T20 World Cup. But faced a challenging beginning, losing to Namibia by seven wickets on Wednesday.
Despite winning the toss on a favorable batting wicket, Zimbabwe could only score 132/8. Namibia’s powerful batting, particularly Nikolaas Davin’s impressive 89, chased down the target comfortably with over five overs remaining,
Houghton said the performance was ’embarrassingly bad’ and could find no reason why his men played so poorly during the fixture.
“I have just spent quite a bit of time in the changeroom with the team after that game and, when you ask what went wrong, as far as I am concerned, we got everything wrong,” Houghton was quoted by ICC.
“We were awful today, embarrassingly bad. I think it’s probably one of the worst games that I have ever been associated with in a Zimbabwean jersey.
“Why it happens, I have absolutely no idea. We train hard, we train with specifics. The guys worked really hard, they had enough energy coming into this game, but we batted poorly and followed that up by bowling poorly and our fielding was average,” he said.
The head coach stressed the importance of his players putting the loss to Namibia behind them quickly and concentrating on the remaining matches.
“We can’t dwell on these losses. It’s important they recognise how bad a loss that was – which is what I have just given them in the changeroom – but it is a quick turnaround and that’s a good thing we can put it all right tomorrow afternoon and get ourselves on the board with a win and then start our march towards qualifying,” he said.
With just two spots at next year’s 20-over showcase in the West Indies and USA up for grabs at the qualifier event, Houghton now believes his side needs to win all five of their remaining matches to have any chance of progressing.
“It’s a terrible start to this tournament, but we do know we’ve got to win the next five games and still qualify. That’s important for us, but not my best day and certainly not my happiest day. In fact, I feel like we should be all out here apologising to our fans,” Houghton said.
Zimbabwe will next play against Tanzania at the United Cricket Ground in Windhoek on Thursday.
–IANS
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