Online Reporter
Brandon Moyo
Zimpapers Sports Hub
THE Chevrons ended a five-year wait to beat Afghanistan in a T20I match as they won by four wickets in a last-ball thriller at Harare Sports Club yesterday.
Before yesterday’s game, the Chevrons’ only win over Afghanistan in the shortest version of the game was in 2019 during the Bangladesh Twenty20 Tri-Series.
Since then, Zimbabwe suffered two 3-0 series whitewashes in 2020/21 in the United Arab Emirates and in 2022 in Harare.
Yesterday’s victory was a much-needed win for the Chevrons, who were coming off a poor show against Pakistan in Bulawayo last week.
Afghanistan won the toss and elected to bat first and were restricted to 144/6 in 20 overs before Zimbabwe went on to chase down the target with the last ball of the match, finishing on 145/6.
Zimbabwe captain Sikandar Raza said the win took some weight off their shoulders.
“Zimbabwe needed that victory. We needed it for the changing room and for the fans to start believing. A win like that basically will tell us where we went wrong.
“Sometimes, the result is not in our control.
“We have agreed to give it everything we have for the nation. When we come back to the dressing room, we should feel tired mentally and physically,” said Raza.
The skipper was also full of praise for Tashinga Musekiwa ,who scored the winning runs.
With Zimbabwe needing 11 runs from the last over, Musekiwa comfortably saw his team through.
“We spent a lot of time identifying that he (Musekiwa) could be a finisher. It will do him a world of good and hopefully he starts believing in his ability as much as we do.
“When you have a guy who fights for his country, to have three tough games against Pakistan and then to do that today, I could not be happier and prouder (of Musekiwa),” he said.
Afghanistan captain Rashid Khan believes that they did not put enough runs on the board for them to win and believes that they gave away a lot of wickets early on in their innings.
“We wanted to put up a good total on the board. We were only 15-17 runs short, it was still a good total. Nabi and Karim played really well in the middle. We gave away so many wickets early on and in T20s, it is hard to come back.”
The Chevrons’ chase got off to a good start with a second wicket partnership of 75 runs between Dion Myers and Brian Bennett before the former fell for 32 runs off 29 balls.
Bennett would go on to agonisingly fall one run short of his fourth T20I half century on 49 runs from as many balls.
With the game seemingly slipping away from Zimbabwe, it was Musekiwa who stood tall in the last over.
