Simply Magnificent….now the Aussies know we aren’t a token team FAMILY AFFAIR . . . Zimbabwe cricket coach Steve Mangongo is hugged by his mother after leading his team to a great victory over Australia at Harare Sports Club yesterday. — AFP
FAMILY AFFAIR . . . Zimbabwe cricket coach Steve Mangongo is hugged by his mother after leading his team to a great victory over Australia at Harare Sports Club yesterday. — AFP

FAMILY AFFAIR . . . Zimbabwe cricket coach Steve Mangongo is hugged by his mother after leading his team to a great victory over Australia at Harare Sports Club yesterday. — AFP

Robson Sharuko Senior Sports Editor
THERE have been some iconic moments in Zimbabwean sport in the past three decades – the Golden Girls winning gold at the ’80 Moscow Olympics, Nick Price capturing the British Open at Turnberry in ’94 and Even Stewart being crowned world diving championship in Rome in the same year. Kirsty Coventry came along, at the turn of the millennium, and turned herself into a Commonwealth champion before winning gold at the Olympics in Athens in 2004 and Beijing in 2008.

To those standout sporting moments for us, please add this one – Zimbabwe beat Australia, the number one-ranked ODI team in the world, at Harare Sports Club on Sunday, August 31, 2014.

Of course, Zimbabwe’s cricketers have beaten the Aussies before in a 50-overs game, on the big stage of the World Cup in England in ’83, when Duncan Fletcher and his men defied the odds and powered their way to an incredible win in Nottingham.

But that Aussie team wasn’t the best in the world, they lost four of their six group matches, including big defeats of more than 100 runs to the West Indies and India, and failed to make the semi-finals.

Yesterday at Harare Sports Club the Aussies sent a team that is ranked number one in the world, against a team ranked number 10 on the globe, had won the last meeting between the two sides by 198 runs just six days ago and scored 350 runs, for the loss of just six wickets, in that game.

Their first visit here in a decade had been questioned, by some critics back home who insisted that it was a “token tour”, their argument probably premised on their belief that there was nothing to gain in playing against Zimbabwe.

And when the Aussies romped to that huge win in the first game, they must have started saying we told you so, didn’t we?
But after the events at Harare Sports Club yesterday, the post mortem for the Aussies will be a tough one, the humiliation, for that’s exactly what this result represents for them, will be a tough one to swallow and no one will say that it was a fluke, that we didn’t deserve it.

Aussie skipper Michael Clarke sportingly gave us due credit, for the way we played our cricket yesterday, even though there were some poor moments for us in the field, to back some outstanding performances for our spin bowlers while, crucially, there were some batsmen who stood up to be counted when the run chase appeared lost in the familiar collapses.

Skipper Elton Chigumbura played a true captain’s innings, leading his team over the line at the end with a big half century, under severe pressure and on a difficult surface, while he got a good helping hand from the outstanding Prosper Utseya who fittingly cracked the winning six.

Brendan Taylor also played his part, and they usually say the Zimbabwe innings is usually in good health when he does, and there were contributions from the openers and the reliable Hamilton Masakadza.

It wasn’t pretty stuff, at some of the occasions, and many were holding their hearts in their hands, at the end, with Chigumbura surviving a close run-out chance that he had given the Aussies, in what was probably the defining moment of this game.

There were times when one felt, with a lot of justification, that we would see the familiar collapse by the Zimbabwe batsmen and, from a comfortable 100-2 they appeared to have pressed the suicidal button as they lost a heap of big wickets and were limping at 106-5 with the cream of their batsmen back in the pavilion and more than 100 still needed for a win.
Paul Chingoka, the former Tennis Zimbabwe president, could hardly watch and went home.

But, to Zimbabwe’s credit, they refused to be buried and, buoyed by a vociferous crowd that cheered every run they scored and relished the chance of slaying a giant in their backyard, they found a way to avoid another defeat.

And where they had choked against South Africa, on Friday, they stood up to be counted yesterday.
“Hatimborohwa kunyeperana,” their fans thundered in song, refusing to be bullied by the Aussies, breathing life into the lungs of their last men standing and making the players appreciate that they were not alone in this battle.

There was still a lot to do, in tricky conditions, when Utseya joined Chigumbura at the crease, in a stand that represented the last hope for the hosts and the scorecard reading 156-7, but the two veterans fought for their country, with distinction, and took Zimbabwe past the line.

And, when victory was secured, fittingly with a huge six, Harare Sports Club exploded as the fans celebrated a milestone achievement not only in the history of their cricket team, which has had a rough ride in the past few months, but in the context of Zimbabwean sport.

Opener Tino Mawoyo was sprinting on the field, and many other players were following him, to mob the pair that had taken them home, the fans in the stands were going hysterical and those, watching in suits in the Chairman’s Lounge, were hugging each other. This was a golden moment for Zimbabwe cricket and the headlines, for a change, would be about something positive that had come out of the game.

Those who had been targeting the game’s leadership as misguided and clueless, could take a back seat for a while and the heroes, refreshingly, were Chigumbura, Utseya, Taylor, Masakadza and all the spinners who took life out of the best team in the world.

This wasn’t a token win, by any stretch of imagination, but a huge victory that would not only make headlines in this country but around a world that will take time to adjust to the reality that the breaking news coming out of Harare Sports Club wasn’t a delayed April Fools gaffe but the real stuff that the Aussies had been humbled.

This was a golden moment for Steve Mangongo, the coach who had suffered a lot of criticism, if not ridicule, in the newspapers as a misfit who had been thrown into the deep end and was hopelessly out of depth at this level of the game.

One of the defining moments, from Harare Sports Club yesterday, came when his mother, overcome with emotion, hugged him in the wild celebrations that greeted this grand result.
This was a huge result for the players who have suffered so much, in terms of criticism, in the past few months.

This was also a big result for the Zimbabwe Cricket leadership, who have been hammered left, right and centre in recent weeks since a new chairman, Wilson Manase, took over, and while one swallow doesn’t necessarily make a summer, you know you are doing something right when you beat the world number one ranked team in the world.

The Zimbabwe cricket team remains work in progress and Mangongo will not be fooled by this win to believe that he now has a world-class side that can steam-roll all the opposition.
But when you beat the number one ranked team in the world, you have a reason to believe.

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