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Brandon Moyo, Sports Reporter 

THE Zimbabwe women’s cricket team’s failure to qualify for next year’s International Cricket Council T20 World Cup despite having an impressive tournament was due to the team’s lack of exposure in playing high pressure matches. 

Lady Chevrons head coach, Gary Brent believes that missing out in the World Cup qualification in the United Arab Emirates last week is due to the team not being able to perform well when put under pressure. He feels that the more they play international cricket the more they will be able to cope under pressure. 

“Missing out in the World Cup qualifications was just really playing under pressure, I don’t think we played particularly well when we were put under pressure,” Brent told Chronicle Sport. 

He added: “I think that will come more and more the more we play international cricket the more pressure we will be put under and the more we will be able to cope with that, so I think literally that was the only thing that separated us from qualifying and not qualifying.”

Despite failing to book their place to next year’s T20 World Cup, Brent is happy with the way his team performed throughout the tournament with both bat and ball as well as in the field stating that the side has improved tremendously. 

“Our fielding department has made enormous strides and we are a formidable fielding side, unfortunately we made mistakes, again under pressure, batting wise we’ve got a very destructive batting line up if we all have the right mindset and, in our bowling, bowling has been our best department and we’ve done well but we need to work on it, we need to get more accurate,” said Brent. 

Lady Chevrons

Young all-rounder, Kelis Ndlovu was one of the outstanding players for Zimbabwe as she picked up the most number of wickets with 11 in five innings, with the best figures of 3-15 against Thailand in the third-place play-off match.

Left arm seamer Nomvelo Sibanda finished with eight wickets and best figures of 2-9 against Papua New Guinea while Modester Mupachikwa recorded the highest number of dismissals throughout the tournament with seven and also the highest number of removals in an innings with three.

Brent who took over the reins when the Lady Chevrons played in the Namibian tri-series believes that his charges have changed from that time and are now challengers for any top teams across the world. 

“We are certainly not the same team that was in that series, we have taken enormous strides forward and we are now serious contenders for anybody in the top 10 list in all nations,” he said.

The Lady Chevrons missed out on a maiden World Cup appearance after they fell just four runs short against Ireland in the semifinals. 

The World Cup qualifiers were not the end for the Lady Chevrons as they have a tour to Thailand, whom they won their matches against in the qualifiers, in November and will be involved in a triangular series with Netherlands as well. 

“What I was very pleased with is when we played Thailand in Zimbabwe a few months ago they got the better of us and we won two games out of two against them in this World Cup qualifier so we have improved, still loads and loads of work to do but certainly we are on the right path,” said Brent. 

Having played under 45 degrees heat and incredible humidity, not once did the team complain nor have any fatigue issues and the coach is impressed with the work his team put out on their fitness and mental preparedness as a massive improvement. 

“We are on the right track, we just have to do a few things a little bit better and we will be there, I’m very excited for the future of Zimbabwe Lady Chevrons and there is nothing to stop us from going wherever we want to go, we are going to have to work hard and smart, it’s going to be an exciting ride,” Brent said.