BY SPORTSCAST WRITER
HARARE – Justin Sammons, Zimbabwe’s new cricket coach, has conceded that his team needs to “up the skills” after India completed a thumping series-clinching 10-wicket win to give the South African tactician a proper baptism of fire.
India took an unassailable 3-1 lead at Harare Sports Club on Saturday in the five-match T20I series after openers Yashasva Jaiswal (93 not out) and captain Shubman Gill (58 not out) took India home comfortably with 28 balls remaining in response to the hosts’ 152-7.
Sammons, who was appointed just under two weeks before the series, was asked in the post-match press conference to state what he has identified as the “strengths and weaknesses” of the Zimbabwe side.
“From a weakness point of view, I wouldn’t call it weakness, I’d call it an area where we can look to improve,” replied Sammons.
“It’s definitely the skill, the level of skill with the ball, with bat, in the field. Probably it’s just been slackening off. But there is no better test than playing the best in the world. That shows where you are from a skill-level point of view. We’ve got to up the skills, there is no doubt about that. I’ve only been here a week and five days, so it’s not a long time. So (I’m) slowly getting to understand the skillsets that each individual possess, how sort of identity and character is the team. We are slowly starting to put that together as a T20 team.”
The former Proteas batting coach, on the other hand, praised his team’s “energy”, saying the Chevrons can lay a foundation on that.
“I think as a strength, (it’s) definitely the energy this team is bringing,” he said.
“They are showing that real energy in the field, with bat, with the ball. Even if the skills haven’t quite matched it, they bounce it, the willingness to go out there and be positive in thinking has been impressive. For the youngsters, naturally it’s something we can work with, that energy and the mindset.”
While India were ruthless in wrapping the series ahead of Sunday’s last match, Sammons saw some positives in the Zimbabwean side.
“You can see that there have given it their all,” he commented. “From a batting point of view, there was improvement especially at the top (Wessly Madhevere and Tadiwanashe Marumani had an opening stand of 63), there was massive improvement in that aspect. I think they showed a lot of composure in the way they went about it. The way they have improved in terms of playing the Indian spinners, especially (Ravi) Bishnoi. We really struggled against him in the series. But that’s natural. It’s the first time the guys are facing somebody like that. They haven’t experienced this before. The more they do, the better they will get. So for us it’s really about learning. Whether it’s through a win, or loss, positive or negative. We just need to keep making sure that we take those lessons on board. So looking forward to tomorrow, we just need to go out and try to win, and winning means playing our best game.”
Sammons believes however that Zimbabwe would have stretched the T20 world champions, who toured with a second-string side, if only the African side had taken its chances.
“International cricket is ruthless, there is no place to hide,” remarked Sammons.
“Even if the scores have been convincing in terms of the wins for India, the margins are still fine – a catch here, and a few ones dropped. In the second game India are 44-2, and the previous game in their mind (Zimbabwe stunned India by 13 runs in the low-scoring first match), and it can be a different story. In the third game we lost by 23 runs. We gave away 20 runs in the field, and had a few dropped catches. Again if those are taken, the margins is startling in terms of the end result. But today I think India was superb, they played an amazing game of cricket. With the bowl they were so disciplined, and they used the big boundaries to their advantage. With the bat, those were two world-class batters, and on their day it’s tough.”
