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Innocent Kurira, Sports Reporter
CHEVRONS captain Sean Williams admits the experience of Brandon Taylor, Graig Ervine and Kyle Jarvis will be missed in the Afghanistan series that begins today, but hopes the youngsters will rise to the occasion.

Zimbabwe and Afghanistan clash in two Tests and three Twenty20 Internationals at the Zayed Cricket Stadium in Abu Dhabi, United Arab Emirates.

The first Test gets underway today with Williams clearly stating that his side’s main objective was to win games.
Taylor and Ervine both failed to join the national team camp due to illness while Jarvis is out injured.

“Missing Ervine and Taylor is a huge blow for us, not only them, but Kyle Jarvis as well. Experience wise we definitely need them in Test cricket. But at the same time, we do have a young bunch coming through. Again, we are in a rebuilding process, so missing them is not only for the juniors, but for the senior guys like Raza and myself because these guys are highly experienced and are a support system for us as senior players. However, they are not here, the challenges are there, but we have to take them head on,” said Williams.

“The selection will be tricky. We have not had a chance to look at the wicket and how it looks like. But we have a rough idea of how the pitch will look like. Obviously, the wicket will have an impact on the selection. Whether we go with an extra seamer or we specialist spinner we will have to make a decision. I think Sikandar Raza, Ryan Burl, myself, and Madhevere are there meaning we have a lot of spin options out there. You still have the likes of Wellington Masakadza and Brandon Mavuta seating on the sidelines waiting for a game makes it tricky, not only to the team but to the batting options as well.”

Zimbabwe and Afghanistan drew in their three-day warm up match played last week.

The Chevrons declared their first innings on 505-6 after 135 overs.

Kevin Kasuza top scored with 129, Test skipper Williams was second best with 86, Raza compiled 74, Burl 65, while Madhevere contributed 56.

Afghanistan scored 271/8 off 113.2 overs at the end of the third and final day’s play. Pace bowler, Donald Tiripano picked up two wickets for 18 runs, left-arm spinner Wellington Masakadza also had two wickets at the expense of 47 runs, while Williams and Richard Ngarava picked up one wicket apiece.

Williams said a decision on the team selection is yet to be made.

“The selection will be tricky. We have not had a chance to look at the wicket and how it looks like. But we have a rough idea of how the pitch will look like. Obviously, the wicket will have an impact on the selection. Whether we go with an extra seamer or we specialist spinner we will have to make a decision.”

The historic Test match will be beamed live on ZBC TV as well as RTA (Afghanistan), Fancode (India), eCriclife (UAE), Geo Super/PTV (Pakistan), Freesports (UK-Europe), Rabbithole YouTube Channel (Rest of the World). — @innocentskizoe