Chigumbura: Quick chase was 'not realistic'

Zimbabwe captain Elton Chigumbura has confirmed, as was readily apparent at the time, that his side never intended to try and reach the tri-series final, rather opting to try and win the game against South Africa on Thursday.

Zimbabwe captain Elton Chigumbura has confirmed, as was readily apparent at the time, that his side never intended to try and reach the tri-series final, rather opting to try and win the game against South Africa on Thursday.

The Proteas posted 272 to win, and Zim needed to reach that in under 25 overs to reach the finale against Australia. Instead, they opted to get a regular win in the bag, but fell 63 runs short, with Brendan Taylor top-scoring with 79.

Chigumbura said: "It would have been nice to just win the game. We thought chasing 270 in 20-something overs was not realistic, so we might as well try and play to win the game, and also just try and do what we did against Australia – but with wickets in hand.

"Unfortunately it went the other way and we kept losing wickets. With the start we had it was chaseable, but after about eight overs when we'd started losing wickets it started getting harder and harder.

"We just left BT [Brendan Taylor] on his own. If we had supported BT, who knows, we could have put out a better performance."

He added of the batsmen: "We had games that bowlers bowled well and it was just up to the batting group to support the bowling performance. On the batting side, guys were playing well but in patches. We didn't play as a team to put up a good performance as a batting group.

"It was just maybe one or two guys putting up their hand and scoring 50s and more. If you could put those scores together in one game, that's what we're looking for. If we do that consistently, we'll win more games than we lose."

Chigumbura then looked ahead to the series against Bangladesh in October, saying the recent games will give them confidence, especially in the bowling department, where some spinners, notably rookie John Nyumbu and veteran Prosper Utseya, did well.

He said: "[This experience] has helped, but talking about Bangladesh – those are different conditions. They play differently, so we have to adapt as well. But it's good for us to play games. The more we play, the better we'll understand our own game.

"The bowlers played a big part in all the games they played. I know in the first game we went for many runs, but looking at the wicket and also the score in the next game between South Africa and Australia, it was around 320 as well.

"So I thought the bowlers did well throughout the tournament, especially the spinners."

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