adminAS of July 2021, Zimbabwe’s senior men’s cricket team had played 115 Test matches resulting in 13 victories, 74 defeats and 28 draws for an overall winning percentage of 11.30.
Zimbabwe played their first test match in 1992, becoming the ninth test nation.
On Wednesday the Chevrons survived a late onslaught from West Indies to escape with a draw, their overall 29th, on the final day of the first Test cricket match at Queens Sports Club.
It was pleasing to note that it was a day that concluded with great action from this match. It started as a rainy affair, but we got to see some solid cricket.
We almost had a result too, but the draw does not seem like an unfair result given how the game went. After West Indies set Zimbabwe a target of 272 in about a session-and-a-half, Gudakesh Motie picked up 4 for 50 in 24 overs, leaving the hosts in all sorts of trouble, but the debutant wicketkeeper Tafadzwa Tsiga made an unbeaten 24 off 83 balls to bail his side out.
While it cannot be overemphasised that Zimbabwe held off late West Indies charge to draw the first test, the Chevrons batsmen have been doing impressive things with the bat as the Zimbabwe opener in the Test Innocent Kaia scored a half century in his debut match scoring 67 runs before he was given a Leg Before Wicket (LBW) by West Indies’ Alzarri Joseph.
The exciting Test match shows that West Indies who were expecting an easy win over Zimbabwe are now having to battle it out for the win.
The West Indies fast bowler Joseph has been an important member of the visitors team in the Test match where he took three wickets for his side in Zimbabwe’s first innings. He gave away 75 runs in his 26 overs.
Overall West Indies have slightly better bowlers in this Test series than Zimbabwe who have more composed batsmen who are able to score more runs when chasing and under pressure. One can argue that, despite their underdog tag, the Chevrons have so far given the tourists a good run for their money.
On his debut in this long version of the gentlemen’s game, it has also been pleasing to see former England batsman Garry Ballance play for his birth country and score a century for Zimbabwe. This puts his name in history books of cricket as he has become the third player in Zimbabwean history to score a century in his debut. This is a feat that has been previously achieved by Hamilton Masakadza and Dave Houghton who interestingly is the current Chevrons head coach.
With the second Test between the two sides set to start on Sunday, Ballance also became the second player to score a century for two different countries. This is a development that goes on to show that Zimbabwe has great potential, great cricket talent that can be easily be used to conquer all and sundry in a game that once took a nose dive soon after the turn of the millennium.
As of March 2021, Zimbabwe’s win percentage of 11.7 percent is the second-lowest of any test nation to have played at least ten matches, ahead of Bangladesh, and lower overall than any other nation except Ireland. Despite being a test nation since 1992, Zimbabwe accepted a voluntary suspension from test cricket in 2005 and did not play test cricket again until 2011.
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