WE CAN ’ T WRITE OFF ZIMBABWE ’ ’
Whatmore lifts side s spirits
SHAH owes his livelihood to driving a taxi in Hamilton, but he owes his loyalty to Afghanistan. And he reckons the World Cup could have had a thing coming.
“Scotland have been playing good cricket, so I don ’ t know if we will beat them,” he said yesterday as his cab sped along the road that weaved through farmland to connect Hamilton ’ s airport to this sleepy city in the Waikato region of New Zealand ’ s north island.
“But Zimbabwe! If we were in the same group we could have beaten Zimbabwe, just like we did before.”
Yes. And no. Afghanistan won two one-day internationals against Zimbabwe in Bulawayo last July. But only after the home side had won the first two.
Shift the paradigm and it is clear why SA will have an unusually confident Zimbabwean team on their hands in their World Cup clash at Seddon Park on Sunday.
The sides have met in 36 completed ODIs, of which SA have won 34. But Zimbabwe ’ s first win over SA was earned at a World Cup, in 1999.
The complication for SA on Sunday is the infectious enthusiasm created by the presence of new coach Dav Whatmore.
Zimbabwe have not lost any of the five games they have played in New Zealand since February 2. They reeled off three victories against Northern Districts and when their World Cup warm-up against New Zealand on Monday was washed out the home side had been reduced to 157-7.
In another warm-up on Wednesday, Zimbabwe chased down a target of 280 to beat Sri Lanka by seven wickets.
SA, by contrast, had to find a way past the eight-ball to beat Sri Lanka by five wickets on Monday. Two days later, they crashed to New Zealand by 134 runs.
AB de Villiers missed the first of those games with a hip injury while Dale Steyn was rested for the second, in which Hashim Amla did not bat. But SA ’ s excuses run out right there. SA should beat them, but there ’ s a taxi driver somewhere who knows otherwise.