Williams ton, Cremer fiver give Zim A win
Zimbabwe A made light work of touring Canada with an 81-run victory in the second of three one-day internationals played at Harare Sports Club yesterday.
With yesterday’s win, Zimbabwe A, captained by Sikandar Raza Butt, completed a series win ahead of the third and final match, to be played at the same venue tomorrow.
Zimbabwe A is using most of the national team regulars as they warm up for more important tours coming ahead.
Yesterday, Butt won the toss and elected to bat first, which his batsmen did well, putting on 285 runs for the loss of five wickets in their 50 overs.
Left hander, Sean Williams (114) scored an unbeaten century, while Butt fell three runs off a half ton.
Openers Solomon Mire (22) and Chamu Chibhabha (35) made a first wicket partnership of 57 runs before the latter departed.
Butt and Williams shared in a 90 run partnership and the latter hung around to the end, facing 112 balls and hitting 14 boundaries.
Wicketkeeper batsman, Peter Moor and Malcolm Waller scored 20 and 32 runs each, respectively, with the latter using up just 22 balls for his total before he fell to the combination of Mark Monfort and Nikhil Dutta, who took the catch.
It was always going to be a difficult task for the tourists giving chase to such a total, but they looked brave in confronting it.
Canada started off well and were within touching distance of the required rate, but lost wickets regularly along the way.
Most of their batsmen got starts, but failed to build from that.
Hamza Tariq top scored with 35 runs, while Varun Sehdev had 30.
National team skipper, Graeme Cremer picked up five wickets from 10 overs at the expense of just 27 runs.
The other four bowlers, Butt, Wellington Masakadza, Mire and Donald Tiripano picked one wicket each.
Tomorrow, there might be some shuffling and changing in the Zimbabwe A team, as the selectors seek to give more players time out in the field ahead of their tour to Europe, where they will play Netherlands and Scotland before the big tour away to Sri Lanka.
BY Kevin Mapasure
