zimcricketnews.com

Reuters have been speaking to Zim coach Kevin Curran about his side’s World Cup chances, and as with most people associated with ZC he’s been doing his best to put a positive spin on things, pointing out that Zimbabwe have upset the form book at previous tournaments, and that similar heroics can’t be completely ruled out this time around:

“Anything can happen in one-day cricket, and when it does it’s up to your players to perform on the day. We’ve had the players to do so in the past.”

The side’s lack of experience, meanwhile, could be considered an advantage, at least in terms of placing the pressure to perform on Zimbabwe’s opponents - none of whom will want to be beaten by a side considered so weak:

“Sometimes you can use that to your advantage. West Indies and Pakistan will be under pressure to play well against us, while our guys can go out and play with a bit of flair and hopefully produce the goods.”

“We won’t be taking Ireland lightly because they have guys who have played at a decent standard of cricket, but I’d like to think we could beat them on our day. West Indies have great players like Brian Lara and Chris Gayle, but they can’t fire every time. And as we’ve seen in Pakistan’s series in South Africa, they can be very average. We know we have to win two games to have a realistic chance of reaching the super eight round.”

Personally, I’d love to see Zim register an upset or two - Pakistan, to me, are the most likely candidates, as they have off-field problems on top of their recent poor ODI results, but they’re still unlikely to be a pushover. We can but hope…
Reuters SA - Zimbabwe bank on the unpredictable at cricket World Cup