Brian Lara’s West Indies won the first ODI against Zimbabwe yesterday, but in far from convincing fashion. Needing just 152 to win after Zimbabwe opted to take the slow and steady approach during their innings, WI’s batting lacked any sense of urgency, with a number of cheap wickets perhaps making Zimbabwe look better than they were. As Lara himself said:
“We wanted to win it in a much more authoritative fashion, and we didn’t.”
WI have had their own problems of later - this is their first home ODI win in over a year - but while they should have been able to put significant pressure on Zimbabwe’s inexperienced youngsters, the pressure never really came.
Zim will take some positives from the game, particularly on the bowling side, but as usual the batting let the team down. A maiden ODI 50 from Chibhabha, along with 26 from Duffin and 25 from Taylor were the only significant batting contributions, with the rest of the side failing to reach double-figures. While the pitch wasn’t the easiest for batsmen to work with, the miserly total of 151 was never going to be easy to defend. Both teams will go into Sunday’s match looking to improve on this performance.
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