Heartbreak

Not for me, mind, for Zimbabwe. My prediction of a heavy New Zealand victory looked good after the Kiwis took a big first innings lead. Vettori took five and Zimbabwe were bowled out for only 313. From a strong position, however, the Kiwis collapsed to 36-3 in their first innings and eventually declared on 252-8. I expect they will have wanted to lose fewer wickets, but it still set Zimbabwe a 366 to win, which looked like too much. New Zealand looked on top at stumps on day four, with Zimbabwe 61-2.

Zimbabwe played very well on the final day, however and needed just 101 more to win when the fourth wicket fell. That wicket was Taylor, however, who had scored 117 and put on over 100 with Taibu. Taibu, however, could not carry on to give his side a win. He got to 63, but with Vettori turning the ball out of the rough Taibu played a rash sweep and miscued it straight to midwicket. It was not the best of shots, and it put New Zealand on top. Zimbabwe fought and fought though. Ncube came in up the order (he batted at eleven in the first innings) and hit Vettori for a big six over midwicket. Zimbabwe just couldn’t quite do enough, however, and the superiority of the Kiwi bowlers finally started to tell and the rest of the tail collapsed. Zimbabwe were bowled out for 331 and lost by 34 runs.

Despite the loss, however, Zimbabwe should take heart from their performance. It’s never easy to get more than 300 in the fourth innings of a match, especially against a spinner of the quality of Vettori. New Zealand are certainly a better side on paper. They ought to have won, especially after taking a first innings lead of over 100 runs. The fact that Zimbabwe lost after being briefly 265-3 will be heartbreaking.

New Zealand, similarly, will have some worries after this match. They’re still a reasonably good ODI side, but the Test side have been slipping badly recently. They very seldom play Test matches anymore and they look a bit out of practise. They have two Test against Australia in December and they will definitely need to improve. They looked a bit flat on the last day when they were pushing for victory and I suspect part of that was due to not having played five days in quite some time. New Zealand is not a major cricketing nation, but they need to find a way to play decent Test cricket to maintain development for the future.

Zimbabwe v New Zealand and Pakistan v Sri Lanka predictions

There are a couple of Tests starting this week: Zimbabwe play New Zealand in Bulawayo tomorrow and Pakistan ‘host’ Sri Lanka in Sharjah on the third.

For Zimbabwe it’s just their third Test since returning to the longer form. They beat Bangladesh to mark their return, but collapsed spectacularly to lose against Pakistan. (Though Sri Lanka have shown that may have had more to do with the Pakistani bowlers than the Zimbabwean batsmen.) Daniel Vettori will play for New Zealand for the first time since the World Cup, having retired from one day cricket. New Zealand have been playing very few Test matches lately, and winning still fewer, but I think they will be too strong for Zimbabwe. Zimbabwe are without one of their best batsmen, Tatenda Taibu, and I think they will struggle against Vettori. The pitch won’t help him much, but he’s probably the best bowler that Zimbabwe will have faced and the only one who can bowl long, tight spells to put the batsmen under pressure. He will play on their patience and I don’t think they will be able to keep their nerve. My prediction: New Zealand to win by seven wickets/225 runs.

Sri Lanka need to beat Pakistan in their final test to draw the series, but I frankly don’t see that happening. Sri Lanka have not looked like taking twenty wickets in the first two matches of the series, or in any of the three matches in England. Their bowling has only been at all penetrative at home on a pitch that favoured the bowlers to the point of insanity. Their best hope is to grind out a draw, which they may well do. Despite being bowled out for under 300 three times out of four, they have shown glimpses of competence at various times. Pakistan have had trouble scoring quickly in both matches, and I think Sri Lanka could hold out for a draw in a similar fashion to the First Test. I think that they will, but it might be a close run thing and I would not be surprised to see Pakistan win. My prediction: Match drawn.

Recap

Some brief thoughts on occurrences today:

The England men collapsed from 129-0 to 176 all out. It was pretty spectacular, even by English ODI standards, but there is little to be said about the match that has not been said on the tour already. The loss hands England a 0-5 whitewash. England can try to salvage a bit of face in a one off T20 before having two months off preceding the series against Pakistan in the UAE.

England were on the good side of a whitewash in South Africa though, as the women beat South Africa by five wickets to secure a 3-0 whitewash. A good bowling performance ensured that they only had to chase 182 to win and despite the early losses of Charlotte Edwards and Danni Wyatt they got home with a full seven overs to spare. Lydia Greenway top scored with 63, (and won Player of the Series) and Heather Knight won Player of the Match for her unbeaten 55 with the bat and 2-15 with the ball. England now have a three match T20 series to conclude the tour.

Bangladesh drew their rain ruined Test against the West Indies in Chittagong. There was never going to be a result, although the Windies were bowled out for 244 (a deficit of 106). Bangladesh were the better side and will take heart from debutant Elias Sunny who took 6-94 in the first innings. Two full days were lost to rain, although it was all overnight rain. The groundstaff could not get the outfield dry and days two and three were completely lost. It was something of a farce and should not happen on a test match ground, even in Bangladesh. The Windies have not had a great tour thus far; they won the ODI series 2-1, but were bowled out for 61 in the last match and this performance was a pretty poor one. There is one match left in the series and they will need to up their game considerably to avoid a humiliating defeat.

Zimbabwe won a historic victory against New Zealand. They chased down 329 to win by just one wicket and with one ball to spare. It was their highest ever successful run chase. Malcolm Waller won a deserving Man of the Match after scoring an unbeaten 99 off 74 deliveries and hitting the winning runs (though he was dropped twice in the last over). The Kiwis still won the series 2-1, but this does add something (I’m not sure what, exactly, probably some sort of spice) to the one off test match next week. Hopefully it will be a good match.

Not today, but on Sunday South Africa (men) levelled their series against Australia, inflicting an 80 run defeat on the tourists. Australia won the first match by 93 runs (D/L) so it’s been a pair of hammerings, but in opposite directions. The ODI series concludes on Friday and I am not even going to try to predict how that will go. A tie would probably be most fitting.

New Zealand already have one crushing victory this weekend

New Zealand played the first T20 of their tour to Zimbabwe today. Earlier this year Zimbabwe beat Bangladesh in their one off test and thee matches to two in their ODI series. Then they were hammered by Pakistan in all formats. New Zealand should, of course, be rather closer to Pakistan than Bangladesh, but one can never be sure with teams that don’t play a lot. Their performance today, however, suggests that they are very much the stronger side.

New Zealand won the toss and bowled on a pitch that looked to have something in it for the quicks. Zimbabwe never really got going, and lost wickets at regular intervals. They ended up limping to 123-8, a possibly competitive total in the FLT20, but not so much in an international. Such is the nature of T20s though, that no chase is certain – Ask England, who chased 126 with five overs and ten wickets remaining one day, only to collapse to 88 all out chasing 114 two days later. New Zealand, helped by some poor Zimbabwean fielding, emulated the former performance. Zimbabwe dropped two catches after the powerplay ended. It probably didn’t change the result, but Brendan McCullum in paricular set about making Zimbabwe pay for their sloppiness. He scored 81 not out off 54 deliveries with five fours and six sixes. New Zealand won by ten wickets with 6.3 overs to spare.

Zimbabwe have been out of the international fold for a while, but they must do better than that. Still, it was only a T20 and as we saw with England one merciless thrashing does not a series win. The second and final T20 is on Monday and Zimbabwe could certainly bounce back.

I wonder how many in NZ actually watched a match that started around 01.00 Kiwi time. The All Blacks play the Wallabies tonight (New Zealand time, tomorrow morning UK and US time) and I suspect it’s receiving slightly higher billing in the antipodes. The All Blacks need to win because a France v Australia final would be too much.