HARARE - Zimbabwe Under-19 cricket coach Walter Chawaguta says Monday's victory over Australia in a warm-up encounter was a confident booster ahead of the ICC Under-19 World Cup that gets underway in the United Arab Emirates (UAE) on Friday.
The Zimbabwean teenagers stunned the Aussies by three wickets with nine balls to spare in Abu Dhabi. This morning, the locals clash hosts UAE in their second and final warm-up match.
The team will open their World Cup account against Canadaon Friday in Abu Dhabi.
"It's a warm up match but we take confidence in this win," Chawaguta told the Daily News from UAE.
"There's still a lot we need to do right particularly in our batting, we made a meal of the chase, losing wickets needlessly in the middle section of the match. Our bowling however was spot on, the spinners were on top of their game. They were outstanding and managed to extract spin on good spin friendly pitch.
"Our fielding was good in segments but the occasional drops can cost us in crunch moments so we will continue to work on our fielding. Overall, I am happy with our play and it points to one thing; that we can do well in this competition if our basics are in order.”
Middle-order batsman Ryan Burl was the pinnacle of the team's innings, having restricted the Aussies to 195 runs all out after 46.1 overs.
Burl scored 60 runs from 109 balls batting at number five. He was the last wicket to fall for Zimbabwe in the 46th over before Kieran Geyle with three runs and Malcolm Lake (18) saw the team through after 48.3 overs with a total of 196-7.
Other batsmen who reached double figures were Patrick Mambo (24), Joylord Gumbie (17) and Tinashe Kamunhukamwe (17). Legspinner Deven Bell was the pick of the bowlers with three wickets for 38 runs from eight overs while off-spinner Herbert Chikomba took two for 20 runs from seven overs.