 The third ODI between West Indies and Zimbabwe will be played at
Providence on Wednesday. The series is beautifully placed at one game apiece,
with the tourists having won the first match and the Caribbean side coming back
well to equal the series.
However, the West Indian team is struggling and badly at that, for form. That
is much to do with the fact that the complacency has set in and it is very evident
that both, Chris Gayle and some of those from the media have not been too happy
about things. A day after Gayle made a scathing comment about the way in which
Denesh Ramdin, Dwayne Smith and Kieron Pollard played in the first ODI,
Tony Cozier had come out with a comment in the media that the money seems to
have got to the likes of the players who won a lot of it during the Stanford
Series.
Click Here to Watch West Indies Vs Zimbabwe LiveThe second game had seen the Ramdin and Smith being dropped from the side and
that should have sent out the signals to the players. Even in the second match
though, the match almost went down to the wire, and it was only the lack of
runs scored by Zimbabwe on a sluggish pitch that prevented them from making
it two wins in a row.
Time and again, Chris Gayle has proved to be a one-man army for his
side, and that was seen in the second match as well when he fought a lone hand
and in the end won the match for his side. of course Narsingh Deonaraine was
there but it was evident that the West Indian side was missing the players of
the likes of Ramnaresh Sarwan and Dwayne Bravo and that was a problem.
Zimbabwe, on the other hand, had a pace bowler in their ranks after a long
time, and it was evident that the pace-starved West Indian side would take him
on. Chris Mpofu went for a lot of runs in the second match and unless the situation
demands again, one may see the end of the experiment.
The batting is Zimbabwe's stronger suit but it did not do well in the second
match. The likes of Tatenda Taibu, Hamilton Masakadza and Vusi Sibanda,
not to forget the Brendan Taylors and the Charles Coventry of the world
make for some good batsmen in the middle order and the manner in which they
have been gelling together, it is evident that they will do well as a team and
if given even slight amount of chance, will go after the bowling.
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