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Brandon Moyo, Sports Reporter

ZIMBABWE’S left arm seamer, Richard Ngarava who walked out of the match against South Africa on Monday due to injury is back and is likely to feature in the team’s match against Pakistan today.

Quinton de Kock

The 24- year- old left arm pace bowler limped off in the rain affected match which saw the Chevrons survive carnage from South Africa’s opening batsman Quinton de Kock. Zimbabwe will play their second match in Group 2 of the Super 12 at Perth Stadium in Perth, Australia and the bowler confirmed on Twitter that he was fine.

“I am safe, thank you for the support. I really appreciate it. See you soon, let’s go Chevrons,” he said via Twitter.

Richard Ngarava in his delivery stride

As they go to face a wounded Pakistan who lost their opening match to rivals India and “are still hurting from the defeat” according to batter Iftikhar Ahmed, the Chevrons have been urged by former captain and Coach Andy Flower, to show more composure and control with the bat if they are to add more points on the table.

“There seems to be a slight lack of composure and control in the way that they are going about their batting innings and I think if they do want to add to their one point on the points column they are going to have to find a way of being more composed and keeping their balance even when they have a situation when trying to score quickly.

“That’s an area that they have to address as a group and I feel they will find that they will be able to build better totals with more control if they can find their balance,” said Flower in an interview with T20 Timeout.

The last time Zimbabwe and Pakistan faced off in T20 matches, Pakistan emerged 2-1 victorious in the three-match series. The Chevrons however came close in both their defeats, losing the first match by just 11 runs and the third match by 24 runs.

In their win, Zimbabwean bowlers, like always, pulled out another brilliant display, restricting Pakistan to 99 while they were chasing 119 for the win and Zimbabwe will be looking to emulate that.

Luke Jongwe was the Player of the Match in that win in April last year when he picked up four wickets for 18 runs.
Pakistan have however been enjoying dominance over Zimbabwe as prior to their tour last year, they completed a 3-0 clean sweep of the Chevrons in Rawalpindi in November 2020.

Zimbabwe will be looking at in-form Sikandar Raza to lead them and will also be hoping that their seniors, who have found the going tough, will come into play to guide the team home.

Raza has to quickly get over the duck he was dismissed for against the Proteas and deliver against the country of his birth.
Wessly Madhevere seemed to have rediscovered his form in the match against South Africa with an unbeaten 35 and Dave Houghton will be hoping the young batter continues to play well.

The Chevrons’ bowling attack will be faced with a tough task tomorrow as their opponents boast of some of the world’s finest batters, number one ranked Mohammed Rizwan as well as Babar Azam who is the fourth best batsman in this format of the game.

The match is scheduled for 1300hrs (Zimbabwean time) and the weather forecast is predicting a sunny day with temperatures of around 22 degrees Celsius, thus a full match can be expected with no rain disruption.