Zimpapers Logo

Brandon Moyo, Sports Reporter

ZIMBABWE will head into the Test series against West Indies without Sikandar Raza after the all-rounder was granted permission by Zimbabwe Cricket to play franchise cricket abroad.

Raza will take part in the ongoing International League T20 (ILT20) where he plays for the Dubai Capital. He confirmed via his social media that he is going back to the United Arab Emirates (UAE).

West Indies conducting their first training section at Queens Sports Club in Bulawayo 

“It’s been great to be back home and wear the #national jersey. Time to head back to #Dubai for ILT20Official and join my Dubai Capitals family. See you soon #Inshallah,” he posted on his Facebook account.

ZC director of cricket, Hamilton Masakadza also confirmed that the all-rounder will not be part of the Chevrons Test side. Zimbabwe is yet to announce the final squad for the series and some players who made the A team that will play in the warm-up match are expected to be part of the main side.

The two-match test series against West Indies will be Zimbabwe’s first five-day match outing since July 2021 when they played against Bangladesh at Harare Sports Club. This will be the two teams’ first clash since 2017 when they also played two matches at Queens Sports Club.

Earlier this week, Raza, who was in terrific white ball form for Zimbabwe in 2022, was named in the International Cricket Council (ICC) T20I and One Day International (ODI) Teams of the year.

Sikandar Raza

Raza, also missed Zimbabwe’s T20I series against Ireland in Harare which the Chevrons won 2-1 because he was playing franchise T20 cricket in Bangladesh and United Arab Emirates. He joined the side for the one-day series that ended 1-1 after the third and final contest produced a no result.

The first Test match between Zimbabwe and West Indies is scheduled for February 4-8 while the second will be played from February 12-16. Before that, the Windies are squaring off against Zimbabwe A in a three-day warm-up fixture at Bulawayo Athletic Club, which gets underway tomorrow.

The Windies arrived in Bulawayo on Monday afternoon ahead of the test matches and they held their first training session on Wednesday and had legend Brian Lara helping out on the batting side. The visitors’ team was reinforced by the arrival of all-rounder Jason Holder and fast bowler Alzarri Joseph who were in

Sikandar Raza kisses his helmet after reaching his century against India

South Africa where they were involved in the SA20.
In 2017 Windies won the two-match series 1-0, winning the first contest by 117 runs with the second five-day contest ending in a draw. In the drawn match, Raza top scored with 89 runs in Zimbabwe’s second innings having picked up five wickets in the Windies first innings. He also scored 80 runs in Zimbabwe’s first innings to become the second player in history after Jacques Kallis to pass 80 twice and take five wickets in a Test, which saw him named Man of the Match.

Sikandar Raza

Zimbabwe’s record is not a good one against the Caribbean side in the longest format as they failed to win a match in their 10 encounters. The Windies have seven while three were drawn.

After Zimbabwe were granted Test status in 1992, they only played against West Indies in 2000 in the Caribbean. West Indies won the first Test in Port of Spain, Trinidad and Tobago by 35 runs and also won in the second, this time by 10 wickets in Kingston, Jamaica. — @brandon_malvin