JOHANNESBURG - Tatenda Taibu The Zimbabwean, who was instrumental in his countrys first win at the tournament last week, played with the Australian and Indian in his time with Indian Premier League side Kolkata Knight Riders and he believes his short spell alongside them made him a better player.
Sharing the dressing room with great players such as Ricky Ponting, Sourav Ganguly was a great experience. I learnt a lot about the game from them. It helped me improve as a player, said Taibu in an interview from India. Last Monday, the pint-sized Taibu smashed 98 as Zimbabwe kept their World Cup quarter-final hopes alive with a 175-run win against Canada. Meanwhile, the 27-year-old Taibu, a former national skipper, said the advent of Twenty20 cricket had helped more teams pile up big scores. By the time of going to print, at the World Cup, the 300-run barrier has been breached about ten times. T20 has helped in piling up big scores. Also, with the introduction of the batting powerplay and innovative shots, you get bigger scores, Taibu said. His captain, Elton Chigumbura, welcomed the victory over Canada.
Obviously, I am happy with the performance of the boys. We got a big partnership (181 between Taibu and Craig Ervine) going. We would still like to take it one game at a time and not think about a quarter-final berth straight away. Zimbabwe are in Group A at the World Cup with Australia, Pakistan, Sri Lanka and New Zealand tipped to fill the four quarter-final qualifying berths. They are outsiders alongside Canada.
Post published in: Athletics