Zimbabwe Woes Continue As Batting Leaves Them Short

Zimbabwe fell to another all-too-predictable loss in the second T20 international against Pakistan in Harare on Tuesday.

After once again restricting the visitors to a moderate score of 136-6 (It was 136-7 in the first match) Zimbabwe again failed to create any momentum up front with runs pretty much hen’s teeth in the first over (The score was 16-3 by then).

All this is after great performances with the ball from Luke Jongwe (2-24) and Tinashe Panyangara (2-27) with Prosper Utseya grabbing his first wicket in 7 outings for Zimbabwe.

While Chamu Chibhabha would have counted himself unlucky to have been given out lbw for a delivery that pitched outside leg stump the procession that followed after that took the stuffing out of the small crowd that braved the spate of disappointing results by the Chevrons.

Sean Williams and Sikandar Raza Butt tried to pull it back with a colourful half century partnership but it was always going to be too much as the platform they had to launch from was too shallow.

In the end, it was a 17-run victory for Pakistan who take the series 2-0.

The thing though, is that captain Elton Gumbura keeps talking about those five-percenters and for the cynics it is beginning to look like an excuse for repeated failures.

The players are talented and this is as stable a team as we have had in a while. While purists will see progress, for the fans, the agony of repeated losses over and over again will keep them at home.

We move on to the one-dayers on 1, 3 and 5 October 2015.