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| February 27, 2007 | Tuesday | Safar 9, 1428 |
Zimbabwe pin hopes on unpredictability
HARARE, Feb 26: Zimbabwe are pinning their faith on the unpredictable nature of one-day cricket as the 2007 World Cup prepares to get underway in the West Indies.
Zimbabwe's coach, Kevin Curran, told Cricinfo on the eve of the squad's departure from Harare: "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."
Although they have been perennial underdogs and have won only eight of their past 42 World Cup games, history shows Zimbabwe have a knack of upsetting more fancied opponents. They beat Australia by 13 runs in their debut World Cup match in Nottingham in 1983, thanks to the exploits of their captain (and current England coach) Duncan Fletcher, not to mention Curran himself, who scored 27 and picked up the valuable wicket of Allan Border.
And in 1992, after losing 18 consecutive World Cup matches over a nine-year period, Zimbabwe beat the eventual finalists, England, by nine runs at Albury in Australia in 1992. They then followed that by beating South Africa by 48 runs in Chelmsford in 1999, a result which was instrumental in South Africa's elimination after they tied their semi-final with Australia.
At this year's World Cup, Zimbabwe are pitted in Group D and will take on Ireland before facing Pakistan and West Indies, with Curran hopeful his team will prove competitive. "We won't be taking Ireland lightly because they have guys who have played at a decent standard of cricket," Curran said, "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 [which South Africa won 3-1], they can be very average. We know we have to win two games to have a realistic chance of reaching the Super Eight round." Zimbabwe leave for the Caribbean on Wednesday.
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