The day started well for Brian Lara and his team as he won the toss and his bowlers made the most of the early start conditions. Zimbabwe had been reduced to 3/31 and then 4/59 with not much batting to follow. But the West Indies was unable to maintain the intensity and let the Zimbabweans off the hook. An 83-run partnership between Taylor and Williams saw the score take shape and in the last few overs, Taylor combined well with Elton Chigambura to put on 60 runs in 9 overs and take Zimbabwe past 200.
The first three fifties had each taken on an average 80 balls while the last one came up in 40! Zimbabwe was hampered by the conditions, but they never looked the part and it was some great batting down the order that saw them post a respectable total. At this rate, Pakistan would really need to worry about their chances.
There wasn’t a single half-century in the West Indian innings and this should be a cause of worry for Lara. None of their batsmen is in prime form and cannot be relied upon to see the team home. Not all targets in the next round will be in the 200-runs range and the bowling will definitely be better. West Indies cannot afford to let the intensity drop so often during a game.
With this win, however, the West Indies are through to the second round and their match against Ireland will be crucial to ensure they go through with two points that count. Now that their win over Pakistan is not going to help them in the next round, it would be interesting to see how the game against Ireland on Friday goes.
On the nature of the pitch
"Pitch showed that if you got in, you really needed to knuckle down, work hard and continue on," "It took people a little bit of time to get in once they started. We didn't do that very well."
On conceding many extras
'We certainly didn't bowl as well as we bowled the other day. The wides were still a concern. We bowled too many of them,' King said.
On Zimbabwe, managing to reach 200-runs mark
'We probably should have been looking at a target of 150 to 170. We've still got some work to do on those middle overs. We found it hard to get some wickets there.'
Zimbabwe Captain, Prosper Utseya,
On today's play
'We were trying for a win to put us in a better position to reach the Super Eights, but I thought the guys fought well which was good, so we will have to get it in our next game,'
On failing to post a bigger total
'We lost too many early wickets, and it was kind of tough on the batsmen coming lower down the order to have a go, and try to get a larger total.' -'If we had lost a few more wickets, we probably would not have gotten to 200.'
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