The Herald
David Coltart
10 May 2013
IT is hard to adequately convey just how pleased I am following Zimbabwe’s One Day International series win against Bangladesh on Wednesday.
The best I can put it is “absolutely delightedâ€. I am particularly pleased that Vusi Sibanda and Sean Williams did so well — they are good buddies, enjoy each other’s company, and that was obvious from the field of play today.
I have felt that both have been underrated and am so pleased that they have both shown so emphatically how they are critically important members of the Zimbabwean team in all three types of the modern game of cricket. For those who question what I say regarding Sean and T20s, just look at his stats — he a batting an average of 38 for international T20s!
I think that key to this victory was that we got the selections right.
But of course as I said after Sunday’s game, the most encouraging thing about the manner of this victory was that it was based on mature, sensible cricket played by the entire team.
We have some great new bowlers coming up and it was good to see Brian Vitori making a comeback.
Although Brendan Taylor failed with the bat today he clearly is a good captain who leads by example and who is building a good spirit in the team. So all in all a very encouraging few days for Zimbabwean cricket.
After last Friday’s poor defeat against Bangladesh in the second Test, I described that game as the nadir of cricket in Zimbabwe — the lowest point — and my hope is that that is correct and we now start building and realising our true potential.
However, as good as this team is, it can be a lot better and part of that is creating favourable conditions to attract back the likes of Tatenda Taibu, the Ervine brothers and Craig Ballance. I may sound like a stuck record in that regard but I believe that this is possible.
Some of these players may struggle to force their way into this side but for Zimbabwean cricket to become great, and for it to be able to compete against the stronger cricketing nations, it needs to have a strong A side with players keeping the national team on their toes.
For this to happen, we simply must get all our top eligible players back in our set up.
David Coltart is the Minister of Education, Sport, Arts and Culture