The Hindu : Zimbabwe primed for orange disorder

Online edition of India's National Newspaper
Friday, Feb 28, 2003

Sport

Sport - World Cup

Zimbabwe primed for orange disorder

Bulawayo FEB. 27 . Zimbabwe hope their own trailblazing history doesn't come back to haunt them when they face The Netherlands here on Friday to keep their fading World Cup dream alive. When they played their first ever World Cup in 1983, they beat the Australians and now, as a Test-playing nation themselves, they are in the position of being moving targets.

After beating Namibia and claiming the four points when England forfeited their scheduled game in Harare, Heath Streak's side have since lost consecutive matches to India and Australia. If Zimbabwe does lose, it would make the outcome of their final match against Pakistan next Tuesday academic as far as they are concerned.

Streak knows that the Dutch, who have lost their four World Cup matches, will be looking at the example of Kenya for inspiration following the Africans' shock win over Sri Lanka. "We don't know the meaning of the word `complacent'," said Streak who gave his team the day off after their defeat against Australia and they responded by getting up at 4.30 in the morning to go fishing.

On Wednesday, their training session was interrupted twice by rain and the unsettled weather over the Matabeleland bush could lead to a no result on Friday which would be just as demoralising as defeat.

Zimbabwe's squad are all fit, except Grant Flower, who is still nursing his spinning finger with four stitches inserted after a fielding mishap. He will probably play, but only as a batsman and field outside the realm of the specialists where he is usually found.

The Dutch, although not expected to rival the victory of the Australians here, have at least imitated the World Champions in one respect by delaying their arrival for a day. The Netherlands skipper Roland Lefebvre is hoping his team can pull off a surprise despite suffering defeats to India, England, Australia and Pakistan.

"The team has been very competitive and was not rolled over or thrashed by the big teams," he said. "It is a big plus that we could take 19 wickets in the big matches against India and Pakistan. The lack of pace bowling in the league back home and the high quality of spin in this World Cup has found us wanting a bit."

Teams (from):

Zimbabwe: Heath Streak (capt), Andy Blignaut, Dion Ebrahim, Sean Ervine, Andy Flower, Grant Flower, Travis Friend, Douglas Hondo, Douglas Marillier, Brian Murphy, Henry Olonga, Tatenda Taibu, Mark Vermeulen, Guy Whittall, Craig Wishart.

The Netherlands: Roland Lefebvre (capt), Luuk van Troost, Daan van Bunge, Jacob Esmeijer, Victor Grandia, Feiko Kloppenburg, Tim de Leede, Henk Mol, Klaus van Noortwijk, Adeel Raja, Edgar Schiferli, Reinhout Scholte, Jeroen Smits, Nick Statham, Bas Zuiderent.

Umpires: Steve Bucknor (WI) and Tyron Wijewardene (Sri). TV Umpire: Nadeen Ghouri (Pak). Match referee: Clive Lloyd (WI).

Hours of Play (IST): 1 p.m. - 4.30 p.m. and 5.15 p.m. onwards.

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