The Sunday Mail
WHEN Scotland, Zimbabwe’s next opponents, made the cricket world sit up and take notice when they outsmarted Sri Lanka recently, what went through the mind of Chevrons coach Heath Streak?
“It wasn’t a big surprise but you expect Sri Lanka to beat those associate teams,” revealed Streak ahead of the Chevrons departure for a tour that will take them to Europe and Asia.
The team flies out today and is scheduled to play two ODIs against Scotland, three one day games versus Netherlands before wrapping it up with five ODIs and a solitary Test in Sri Lanka.
Streak revealed that they will not be taking anything for granted even when the face the associate nations.
“I think a lot of teams at home these days are hard to beat. Look Scotland is a strong side and no one can take that team lightly especially us,” said the 43-year-old coach.
“Scotland showed in that 2015 World Cup that they have got some really strong batters and they can upset any team.”
However, with most of his batsmen in form Streak remains confident of a good tour.
“We are going to their home turf but hopefully our preparations this time have been better than (when we played) Afghanistan where there was a lot of bad weather leading into that series,” he said.
“The guys have played a lot of cricket most of them have been involved in (matches against) Namibia and Canada and also our list A games.
“A lot of these guys have also been scoring runs in the domestic competition.
We have seen Solomon Mire, Malcolm Waller, Hamilton Masakadza doing well against Canada, Sean Williams has got a couple of hundreds all the batters seem to be in good touch.
“Chamu Chibhabha has been consistent over the last two- three months as well,” Streak said.
Zimbabwe’s first match with Scotland is on Thursday with the second one slated for Saturday at the Grande in Edinburg.
From Scotland the Chevrons will head to the Netherlands for matches on June 20, 22 and 24 before touring Sri Lanka.
The games against Sri Lanka should give Streak a true picture of how far he has gone with improving the Chevrons’ fortunes.
“We believe we can do it,” said the coach when asked about the team’s chances of upsetting Sri Lanka.
“The pressure is always there but we must handle it. Pressure is part of international cricket if you don’t play with any pressure out there then you not playing for your country.
“The pressure starts when you put on shirt with the Zimbabwe bird . . . that is pressure itself.”
