Zimbabwe captain Sikandar Raza has blamed the team’s disappointing eight-wicket loss in the opening Twenty20 International against Bangladesh on the poor performances of the senior players.
The Chevrons’ batting struggles were brutally exposed in Chittagong on Friday after being restricted to a measly 124 runs before Bangladesh reached 126-2 in 15.2 overs.
“It’s true [senior’s failure in batting], but it’s a responsibility for everyone to accept that they got it wrong. A lot of seniors went missing, we depend heavily on them in batting and they missed out, but hopefully, we’ll get back better in the next game,” Raza said.
Raza reserved praises for wicketkeeper batter Clive Madande and Wellington Masakadza who scored 43 runs and 34 runs, respectively, to ensure Zimbabwe avoided being bowled out for less than 100 runs.
“We take pride in playing aggressive cricket, Clive [Mandande] and Wellington [Masakadza] did that well, it wasn’t their role, but they did the job manfully. We bat until 8, Luke [Jongwe] comes in there, we have good batters, we just need 3-4 guys to come up well, good partnerships and we can get to 180-190 every game,” Raza said.
Raza also rued dropped catches in the field after Tanzid Hasan Tamim was dropped at four runs before he went on to score a match-winning innings of 67 runs off 47 balls which gave Bangladesh a thumping 8-wicket win in the match.
“We have floodlights back in Harare Sports Club, we’re used to fielding under lights, we had a session yesterday here as well. If we had got Tanzid out when he was on 4, we could have had a different game today,” Raza added.