Tatenda Taibu and Craig Ervine guide Zimbabwe to 298 against http://www.senore.com/Cricket/Canada-c748 - ICC World Cup 2011
Zimbabwe set Canada a 299-run target to win their Group A match of the ICC World Cup 2011 at Nagpur in India, courtesy some good batting from veteran http://www.senore.com/Cricket/Tatenda-Taibu-c92882 and middle-order batsman Craig Ervine.
The wicket at Nagpur was very good for batting and the game was expected to be a high-scoring one. This forced http://www.senore.com/Cricket/Elton-Chigumbura-c55937 to bat first after winning the toss for Zimbabwe.
However, the start to the innings wasn’t ideal for the African team, as they lost their openers very early. Brendan Taylor was the first man to be dismissed without troubling the scorers in the opening over of the match. The veteran player was expected to
give a good start to his team, but he has been disappointing in the tournament until now.
Charles Coventry, who looked good in the match against Australia, was not able to get going in today’s match. He was sent back to the pavilion after just managing four run off 10 balls. Zimbabwe were struggling at 7 for the loss of 2 wickets when Taibu and
Ervine came together at the crease. Both players played sensibly and built a solid partnership for their team.
They complemented each other very nicely as Taibu was being aggressive from one end whereas; Ervine rotated the strike from the other. Ervine changed gears after reaching his half-century and played some powerful strokes to lift the run-rate. He was dismissed
after scoring 85 runs from 81 balls.
Taibu top scored in the innings with 98 runs from 99 balls before he threw his wicket away in an attempt to play a sweep shot. He deserved a century, but fell just two runs short of it. However, a solid platform was laid for the lower middle-order and the
team amassed a decent total at the end. Sean Williams scored 30 runs off 25 balls before he got out, while Graeme Cremer managed 26 runs off 23 balls.
A quick-fire 10 runs from just six balls from Ray Price in the death overs helped Zimbabwe get close to the 300-run mark. Canadian attack bowlers http://www.senore.com/Cricket/Khurram-Chohan-c1791 and Harvir Baidwan got their team off to an exceptional start. Even though there wasn’t much
assistance off the wicket, they took early wickets and didn’t give away too many runs.
However, the support bowlers weren’t able to capitalise on the good start and conceded too many runs in the middle overs. Balaji Rao took four wickets towards the end of the innings to ensure that Zimbabwe didn’t get to a massive total.
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