Zimbabwe's pacer-turned-commentator Mbangwa hails team despite loss to Australia

It was always going to be a difficult task for Zimbabwe to stop Australia from notching up their 30th World Cup win on the trot. And expectedly, the defending champions crushed the African team by 91 runs at the Sardar Patel Stadium, Motera, here yesterday.
u00a0

Pommie Mbangwa

However, former Zimbabwe cricketer Pommie Mbangwa, who is on commentary duty here, said his compatriots would take heart from the defeat. "They can always take heart from this game. They were exceptional in bowling and fielding," Mbangwa told MiD DAY.

"There are a few more games left for Zimbabwe. To expect that they will win against Australia in the opening game would have been quite unrealistic.

"However, they need to tie up some loose ends. Today they bowled well and fielded well, but didn't manage to get their batting right," he added.

Zimbabwe did well to restrict Australia to 262 for six, but their batsmen had no answer to Kangaroos' pace battery of Brett Lee (1-34), Shaun Tait (2-34) and Mitchell Johnson, the left-arm speedster being the star performer with figures ofu00a0 four for 19.

Zimbabwe never got going with the bat, losing wickets at regular intervals, and were bundled out for 171 in 46.2 overs. Skipper Elton Chigumbura (14) and Sean Williams (28) put up a 44-run stand for the fourth wicket and later Prosper Utseya (24) and Graeme Cremer (37) offered some resistance with a 49-run partnership for the eighth wicket.

Zimbabwe coach Alan Butcher was pleased with the team's bowling and fielding efforts. "I was hoping to have a better second half with the bat as well. But I am pleased with the bowling and fielding. We were a disaster on the field against Ireland during the warm-up game, but we worked very hard to put that right. We showed that we could be competitive in these conditions. We obviously need to bat well," said Butcher.

Though Australian captain Ricky Ponting was satisfied with the performance, he said there were still a few areas that needed to be worked on.

"We weren't spectacular today. It was a good solid performance, which is what I had asked for from the boys. We have to be on top of our game. We are not there as yet," said Ponting.

Pommie Mbangwa