Zimbabwe XI v Australia A – First Innings Recap
1st Match of http://www.senore.com/Cricket/Australia-c746 ‘A’.
The fixture started at 0900 local time at the Harare Sports Club. Australia A won the toss and elected to bat. http://www.senore.com/Cricket/DA-Warner-c1301 and Aaron Finch opened the innings for the visiting team.
Australians did not start the way they had planned, as one of their dangerous batsmen, opener Warner, was caught out by Utseya after scoring a single. Australia A were at 14/1 in their 3rd over.
Mpofu struck again in the 11th over when http://www.senore.com/Cricket/Aaron-Finch-c881 was given lbw out at a magnificent delivery by the pacer. He left the ground with 21 runs in his piggy bank.
33/2 was a serious situation for the visitors and they badly needed a good partnership for putting up a challenging total on the scoreboard.
http://www.senore.com/Cricket/Callum-James-Ferguson-c49128, batsmen at number 3 and 4, then took the responsibility on their shoulders and added 98 runs to the Aussie’s total, taking it to 131/2.
In the 28th over, off-spinner Utseya’s magic worked and he got rid of this protracted partnership for Zimbabwe XI. Utseya took out 19 year old Nic at a score of 63 runs.
Following him, Ferguson was stump out at 52 runs leaving Australia A at 166/4 in the 36th over.
Nothing seemed to be working for the visitors as their batting line-up was thrashed badly by the Zimbabwe bowling attack.
26-year-old All-rounder http://www.senore.com/Cricket/Harold-William-Stephenson-c61707 O’Keefe lost his wicket in an attempt to take a single and was declared run out.
The consistent fall of wickets left Australian A team baffled as they tried to prevent further loss.
http://www.senore.com/Cricket/Luke-Rex-Butterworth-c73295 were the next unfortunate batsmen to leave the ground. Zimbabwe made a good come back and confined the visitors to a total 185 runs at a loss of 7 wickets in the 42nd over.
Mpofu who had taken 3 wickets so far, took a beautiful catch of http://www.senore.com/Cricket/John-Wayne-Hastings-c68914, the Australian All-rounder, off a ball delivered by Masakadza in the 45th over.
Australian team badly suffered as no one after the 3rd wicket partnership stayed at the crease for long.
http://www.senore.com/Cricket/Mitchell-Aaron-Starc-c76392 when the 50 over innings ended. Australia A managed to score 232 runs at a loss of 8 wickets.
The prominent Zimbabwe bowler was 25-year-old http://www.senore.com/Cricket/E-Chigumbura-c1411, Utseya and Masakadza blew 1 wicket each.
Zimbabwe has been given a target of 233 runs to win the match at a run rate of 4.64 runs per over.
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