HOBART, Australia, 14 January 2004 — Zimbabwe skipper Heath Streak said he was keeping faith in his batting top order for their next triangular one-day cricket series match against India at Bellerive Oval here today.
Streak, whose 46 saved his side from utter humiliation in the 99-run loss in Sydney on Sunday, will stay at No. 7 in the batting order in a show of faith in the top order, which succumbed to 17 for five against the fire of pace bowler and man-of-the-match Brad Williams.
“You don’t want to jump around and panic and have too many wholesale changes,” Streak said here yesterday.
“It was our first game (of the series), we had eight bad overs in the game but other than that I thought the cricket before and after that (collapse), there was a lot of positives, so we’ve just got to keep building on those.”
No.3 Mark Vermeulen, one of Williams’ five victims, said the Zimbabwe batsmen had to show better judgment in the early overs, particularly with the white ball which seams around more than the red one used in Tests.
“If you carry on playing badly like that then shuffle (the order) up, but you’ve definitely got to stick with the same combination,” he said. Streak said while playing in the same series against the more-fancied sides was a “dream come true” for his young group, Zimbabwe were not in Australia to just make up the numbers.
India were also left ruing a collapse from their series opener, losing 13 for six to Australia in Melbourne after captain Saurav Ganguly and Yuvraj Singh had batted their side into a winning position.
The Indians have brought batsman Hemang Badani into the squad for today’s game in place of all-rounder Sanjay Bangar, who was involved in a mix-up that ran out Ganguly and ended India’s chances.
“It’s hard on Sanjay because he’s only played the one game, but we didn’t bat well in pairs after that and it cost us the game,” Ganguly said.
India Agree to Start Pakistan Tour With Tests Instead of ODIs
In Karachi, India have agreed to Pakistan’s proposal to start their upcoming cricket tour with Tests before playing one-day games to attract crowds to the five-day version of the game, officials said yesterday.
India will play a three-day warm-up game, three Tests and five One-Day Internationals on their first full tour of Pakistan in March-April, their first since 1989-90. An itinerary had not been announced because India wanted the one-dayers to be played first.
But Jaghmohan Dalmiya, president of the Board of Control for Cricket in India (BCCI), told his Pakistani counterparts by letter yesterday that the team would visit in the first week of March and stretch the tour until mid-April, according to a Pakistan Cricket Board (PCB) statement. The PCB, which expects over $20 million in revenues from the series, believed if the short version of the game were played first lesser crowds would come for the five-day Tests. PCB Chief Executive Ramiz Raja hailed BCCI’s decision.
