Zimbabwe won the toss and elected to field first and Ireland who won 10 of their 11 World Cup qualifying matches including the final against Afghanistan set a target of 181 runs for with Nial O’Brien hitting a magnificent 62 off 49 balls.
Nial’s young brother Kevin was also at hand contributing 30 runs and Ed Jones coming up with 29.
In return, Zimbabwe could only manage 127 for eight with their top scorer being Hamilton Masakadza who was six runs short of a half century after contributing 44 runs.
Craig Ervine and Prosper Utseya also contributed significantly with Ervine hitting 24 runs while Utseya was on 23 with Raymond Price adding 17 runs which though were not enough to overhaul Ireland’s target.
The result does not do well to Zimbabwe’s confidence ahead of the start of the World Cup as Ireland are not a Test playing nation and had to go through the rigorous qualifying process to play in the Twenty 20 World Cup.
Zimbabwe has automatic entry to such competitions. Zimbabwe open their World Cup campaign against the hosts Sri Lanka on Tuesday before rounding off their group matches with a date against South Africa on Thursday.
The top two teams qualify for the Super Eight stage or in simpler teams, the quarter finals. On their part, Sri Lanka thumped the West Indies by nine wickets in their warm up game.
Post published in: Sport