Chevrons limber in Sri Lanka
ZIMBABWE Cricket senior men’s national team has held their first training session in Sri Lanka ahead of the start of their white ball series on Saturday.
The Chevrons touched down in Sri Lanka on Wednesday evening and wasted no time in getting down to business. They held their first session yesterday morning at the R Premadasa Stadium in Colombo ahead of the first One Day International (ODI) tomorrow.
Zimbabwe and Sri Lanka will meet in three ODIs and as many T20Is with all matches taking place at the R Premadasa International Cricket Stadium. The Chevrons picked uncapped and welldeserving 33-year-old off-spinner Tapiwa Mufudza for the ODI series. Pace bowler Faraz Akram, who has only featured in the T20I format, is also in line to make his ODI bow.
Craig Ervine is back to lead the side after missing the home series against Ireland in December due to injury, but Sean Williams has failed to fully recover in time to make it to Sri Lanka.
After the opening encounter tomorrow, the other two ODIs are pencilled for January 8 and 11 before they meet in the T20I fixtures scheduled to take place on January 14, 16 and 18.
This will be Zimbabwe’s first bilateral visit to the island nation since January 2022. In their last visit to Sri Lanka, they played three ODIs and the Lions won the series 2-1.
The Chevrons have shown good form against the Lions in recent years, including a stunning 3-2 ODI series win during their tour of Sri Lanka in 2017; however, the latter enjoys a good track record over the former.
Apart from bilateral cricket, Zimbabwe and Sri Lanka last played together in white ball cricket in July in the 2023 World Cup Qualifiers where the Lankans prevailed after a dominant performance.
They convincingly won the match by nine wickets in front of a sold-out Queens Sports Club.
Zimbabwe and Sri Lanka have played each other 61 times in ODIs and the latter enjoys a better win ratio. From those 61 matches, Sri Lanka has won 47 games whereas Zimbabwe has been victorious on 12 occasions. Two matches have had no results.
Sri Lanka will also be favourites going into the series as they have won 12 times at home while losing on three occasions only. They enjoy a 77,04 win percentage over the Chevrons. In T20s, Sri Lanka and Zimbabwe have only faced each other three times and the Lankans have won all of the games thus enjoying a 100 percent winning ratio against the Chevrons in the shorter version of the game. The series promises to be a great time for cricket enthusiasts, both in Zimbabwe and Sri Lanka.
Zimbabwe, on the other hand, will be hoping to lift themselves after a string of disappointing results and get off their New Year to a good start. They failed to qualify for the ICC Men’s T20 World Cup 2024 after being unable to secure a top-two finish in the ICC Men’s T20 World Cup Africa Region Qualifier.