The Sunday Mail
Chamu Chibhabha
BATSMAN Chamu Chibhabha is enjoying a purple patch and is determined to make it last so that he can finally become Zimbabwe’s Mr Dependable.
The 28-year-old batsman was in top form in the recent series against India, scoring 157 runs in the three-ODIs and 90 in the two T20s.
The knocks included a man-of-the-match and career best knock of 67 in the last T20.
Now as the Chevrons take on New Zealand in the first ODI at Harare Sports Club today, “Magneto”, as Chibhabha is called by his teammates, is searching for the positive consistency that makes the difference between a good player and a great one.
“It’s what you are always trying to achieve, trying to score runs on a consistent basis and that is the biggest challenge going forward, to find that consistency. I would like to be that guy that the team can always depend on,” Chibhabha said.
The Mashonaland Eagles player credits his good run to the experience gained in the English Home Counties Premier League. Chibhabha is on the books of Harefield Cricket Club.
“Playing in the UK opened up my mind,” he said. “When you always play cricket in the same environment generally you are in a comfort zone as everything is familiar.
“While in the UK I thought hard about my career and realised I had played international cricket for a long time and didn’t like where I was. I didn’t want to come here and make the same mistakes, so I made a decision to do things differently, have the right attitude, mindset and put my mind on the goal I want to achieve,” said Chibhabha, who was dropped from the national side in 2013 due to poor form.
He bounced back and made the 2015 ICC World Cup side where he had some good innings and that purple patch continued in Pakistan where he agonisingly missed out on a maiden ODI hundred by just a single run.
Could that century be near?
“I was close in Pakistan, I was close in the previous series too and if I keep going the way I am going, I will get that hundred.
“I hope it’s going to be an important one, one that wins the game for the team. At the moment my family is away but it would be nice to get that hundred here at home, but I am not going to try and think about it too much.”
Zimbabwe will be hoping to get things right today against a team Chibhabha made his debut against some 10 years ago.
“We always have a chance. Against India we had chances to win some games and against New Zealand we are going to get chances.
“However, the most important thing is when we get close we need to execute and be able to win those games. Just being close is not good enough.”
