Match eight of the ICC Men’s T20 World Cup 2022 will see West Indies square off against Zimbabwe at the Bellerive Oval in Hobart in a Group B fixture.
The first round of the 2023 World Cup has already started and while Namibia has managed to take the lead in Group A, Scotland has managed to take the lead in Group B.
The opening match of this year’s tournament took a very sharp turn with the Asian champions losing by 55 points to Namibia. And the next day, the two-time champions of the Twenty20 World Cup, West Indies, suffered a humiliating defeat by 42 runs against Scotland.
In the match between West Indies and Scotland, the Scots who batted first at the invitation of the West Indies captain scored 160 runs for the loss of 5 wickets in the scheduled 20 overs. However, chasing 161 runs, the West Indian batsmen once again displayed their usual poor batting.
Speaking after the match, West Indies captain Nicholas Pooran said
“Tough loss for us, obviously disappointed. We have to work hard and win two games. We have to take accountability and responsibility,” said Pooran.
“We have to put this loss behind us and pick ourselves up. Sometimes, when you lose games and perform badly as players, you want the next game to come as fast as possible,” Pooran added.
“From a team point of view, we spoke about hitting Scotland hard – no matter who we play – and in the powerplay [with the ball] we took time to assess conditions,”
West Indies will definitely need to win the other two matches against Zimbabwe and Ireland to stay in the tournament, keeping the net run rate at a very high level.
Also, after the first match, West Indies head coach Phil Simmons spoke to the media and said that he should think about how to beat Zimbabwe in the next match.
“We need to beat Zimbabwe first, then we think about everything else. I think that’s the first step,” quipped Simmons.
“You have to think about the next game against Zimbabwe and how we have to beat Zimbabwe. it was last year that Bangladesh lost a close game and still ended up in the Super 12s. So we just have to think about Zimbabwe right now.”
West Indies Probable XI
West Indies got their campaign off to a losing start, so they could ring in some changes. Yannic Cariah and Sheldon Cottrell could replace Akeal Hosein and Obed McCoy respectively.
Kyle Mayers, Evin Lewis, Brandon King, Shamarh Brooks, Nicholas Pooran (c & wk), Rovman Powell, Jason Holder, Odean Smith, Yannic Cariah, Alzarri Joseph, Sheldon Cottrell
Zimbabwe Probable XI
Regis Chakabva (wk), Craig Ervine (c), Wesley Madhevere, Sean Williams, Sikandar Raza, Milton Shumba, Ryan Burl, Luke Jongwe, Tendai Chatara, Richard Ngarava, Blessing Muzarabani