ICC World Cup 2011 warm-up match: Zimbabwe versus Ireland
The ICC World Cup 2011 is building up nicely as the warm up matches continue. There were five practice matches being played today and two of them have already produced results.
Zimbabwe played their second warm-up game and lost to minnows Ireland by four wickets. Both the teams were playing on a neutral venue and belong to different groups in the World Cup. Zimbabwe is placed in the Group A whereas Ireland is in the Group B.
First innings:
In a warm-up match scheduled at Nagpur, Zimbabwe won the toss and elected to bat first. Wickets for the African team started to tumble as the Irish quickie, Trent Johnston, took two early wickets.
In just 7.3 overs http://www.senore.com/Cricket/Tatenda-Taibu-c92882 played cautiously before Ervine got run out for 27 runs. After scoring a gutsy innings of 45 runs Taibu got out to van der Merwe.
The captain, http://www.senore.com/Cricket/Elton-Chigumbura-c55937, was playing well at one end as Utseya got out to Andre Botha after scoring 26 runs off 40 balls.
The tail-enders could not last for long and the wickets kept on falling as the skipper reached his century and remained not out on 103 runs. He faced 81 balls for his quick ton and that included eight fours and three mammoth sixes.
http://www.senore.com/Cricket/Ireland-c751 used eight bowlers and the pick of the bowlers was Trent Johnston. The lanky bowler bowled just five overs and gave nine runs to claim his two wickets. Andre Botha was expensive in his quota of ten overs and gave 58 runs to bag two wickets.
Second innings:
Chasing the target of 245 runs, it just took four balls for Zimbabwe to take the first wicket. Paul Stirling was the first batsman to be dismissed and Shingirai Masakadza claimed his wicket.
After the first wicket, Irish batsmen played sensibly and kept on developing small partnerships. Alex Cusack made a decent 47 runs and that included five fours.
As the wickets were falling for the Irish team, all-rounder Andre Botha scored 79 runs, and gave his team a chance to win the practice match.
The main player for Ireland in the latter stages of the innings was Kevin O’Brien. The experienced batsman ensured that his team wins and in the lower middle order he played an unbeaten innings of 62 runs off just 61 balls. His match winnings innings included
six fours and two sixes. Ireland won by four wickets with just three balls remaining.
For Zimbabwe, the spinner Ray http://www.senore.com/Cricket/Price-c82662 bowled ten overs and picked up two crucial wickets for just 37 runs. Masakadza bowled 6.2 overs and conceded 39 runs for his two wickets. Like Ireland, Zimbabwe also used eight bowlers but still could not save the match.
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