Zimbabwe seals spot in final after D/L win
Tendai Chisoro played a crucial role with both bat and ball as Zimbabwe staged a remarkable comeback to stun the West Indies in the last league match of the triangular series, at Queens Sports Club on Friday (November 25) and qualify final, where it will face Sri Lanka.
In a rain-affected One-Day International, Chisoro scored an unbeaten 42 off 35 and then claimed figures of 2 for 23 in six overs to help Zimbabwe recover from a precarious position and win by five runs via the Duckworth-Lewis method.
As a result, Zimbabwe qualified for Sunday’s final against Sri Lanka with its first win of the tournament, while the West Indies was forced to head home after losing two close games and tying another.
At the start of the match, the West Indies spin duo of Devendra Bishoo and Ashley Nurse picked up three wickets apiece to have the home team in a spot at 89 for 7. Zimbabwe had made a solid start after opting to bat, but a rain delay took the players off the field and initially reduced the contest to 49-overs-a-side.
Bishoo bowled Hamilton Masakadza and Brian Chari after the resumption, before Nurse dismissed left-handers Craig Ervine and Sean Williams in the same over to leave Zimbabwe 63 for 5. With Peter Moor and Graeme Cremer also succumbing to the spinners, Zimbabwe had lost six wickets for 41 runs in 15 overs after the rain delay.
Yet Sikandar Raza Butt found support in Donald Tiripano, with the pair adding 38 for the eighth wicket, and then formed a match-winning partnership with Chisoro.
The duo scored 50 runs from the final five overs of the innings on their way to an unbroken partnership of 91 -- a Zimbabwean record for the ninth wicket in ODIs -- as Raza finished unbeaten on 76 off 103 and Chisoro made a career-best 42 not out.
"We were really under the pump with the bat at one stage, but that partnership at the end to get us up to 218 was outstanding," said Cremer, the Zimbabwe captain. "Then the guys came out and showed great intensity with the ball."
Zimbabwe started its defence with 21 overs of spin, and the plan paid off.
Chisoro struck twice in his first 11 deliveries, and with the other spinners maintaining the pressure, the West Indian team sank to 93 for 5 and found itself behind the Duckworth-Lewis curve with the rain closing in once more.
Although Jonathan Carter made 43 not out off 56 and Jason Holder (22 not out off 17) tried to pull the game back with a late flurry of boundaries in an unbroken 31-run stand off 28 balls, West Indies could not get back in front before the umpires took the players off the field midway through the 28th over, with the score 124 for 5 in 27.3 overs.
"We’re disappointed about not being able to finish off the game," said Holder. "We lacked the killer instinct, but we're trying to gel together as a team."
