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COME BACK KID . . . Craig Ervine marked his return for Zimbabwe with a fine performance in Bangladesh yesterday

Sports Reporter
THE Zimbabweans drew with Bangladesh Cricket Board XI yesterday in a three-day warm up match with Craig Ervine making an unbeaten 85 in the tourists second innings after the hosts were bowled out for 297.
Ervine who is making a return to Test cricket was on fire, his unbeaten 85 coming off 98 deliveries with 11 fours and four sixes and his last match in the long version of the game was last year in March against West Indies.

In the first innings, Ervine only scored five runs, but it seems both form and acclimatisation are favouring him in the conditions Zimbabwe find tough to play against the Tigers while Sikanda Raza Butt (off 74 balls with eight fours ) proved consistent with a 45 — his second forty of the match.

And this is the reason why coach Steve Mangongo told the media he is not taking Bangladesh lightly not only because they are in a basement battle but also because the Tigers are playing in front of their home crowd in conditions that suite them more.

Zimbabwe take on Bangladesh in the first test that gets underway on Saturday.
Zimbabwe last played a Test match in August, suffering a nine wicket defeat at the hands of giants South Africa while Bangladesh’s last test ended in a 2-0 defeat against the West Indies, first a 10 wicket loss which was followed by a 296 runs defeat.

But Mangongo is not looking at all this.
“They are called the Tigers, which is a tough animal, you mess around with a tiger, it kills you. We have to respect tigers, especially in their own forest,” he told Cricinfo.

Mangongo also hinted that he would be cautiously using uncapped leg spinner Natsai M’shangwe in a spin department that also includes John Nyumbu, Tafadzwa Kamungozi, and Wellington, the youngest of the three Masakadza brothers.

“Leg-spin is a very difficult art. You need to train, get confident, understand the environment. We don’t want to expose him too early, that can do damage, so we don’t want to rush him. We want to take a little bit of time, so that he doesn’t panic on the international stage. We don’t want him to take too much load but all these spinners have an equal chance of playing.”

“It is good that the Masakadzas have created a piece of history by being in the squad, but they have to work very hard to be in the team. Hamilton is one of the key players but I am not sure if the other two brothers will make it. We will see after final days of training.

“We were resting our fast bowlers. One week before we came to Bangladesh, they played a game so we wanted them to rest and recover. We played the other two, Shingi and Elton Chigumbura.

“We think we are a developing team. We believe we need to work hard in all three departments for us to be able to progress,” said Mangongo.
Hamilton Masakadza made 31 and Vusimuzi Sibanda continues to struggle as the opener scored 22.

For BCB XI, seamer Dewan Sabbir took two wickets for 17 runs.

Brief Scorecard
Zimbabweans: 241 (Raza 44, Chigumbura 39) and 201 for 5 (Ervine 85*, Raza 45)
BCB XI: 297 (Shuvagata 75*, Shamsur 69, M’shanwge 4-109)