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Zimbabwe cricketer Tendai Chatara (third right) celebrates with his teammates after he dismissed Sri Lankan cricketer Niroshan Dickwella during the first one-day international (ODI) cricket match between Sri Lanka and Zimbabwe at the Galle International Cricket Stadium in Galle

ZIMBABWEAN batsmen will be out to exorcise the ghosts of sweeping that saw them fail miserably in the second ODI in Galle when the five-match series moves to Hambantota tomorrow tied 1-1.

The Chevrons charmed the world by becoming the first team to chase more than 300 in an ODI in Sri Lanka to beat the Asians in the first ODI with opener Solomon Mire scoring a hundred.

But the sweep shots, which served the Chevrons well in that match, proved their downfall in the second ODI as the Sri Lanka spinners bamboozled them.

Now, the series moves to Hambantota for a decisive third match tomorrow with further ODI games on Saturday and Monday.

The two teams will then feature in a one-off Test in Colombo. “You inherit the players and your job is to try and get the best out of them. I certainly think that the team we’ve got here has got the ability to win against any side,” head coach Heath Streak said.

“We had some good preparation coming into the series and I am looking forward to a lot of guys who can pull around. ‘’The future of Zimbabwe cricket is brighter if we keep doing the right things.”

Streak also believes his side has suffered from long breaks in matches. ‘’It’s well-documented (that) there have been a lot of players who have left and are playing around the world who come from Zimbabwe,” he said.

“It’s been tough for Zimbabwe to retain some of these players and hence we are constantly rebuilding. ‘’We’ve got a lot of young guys in our team. If you look around the world, and look at Zimbabweans internationally, we’ve got the likes of Gary Ballance, the Curran boys Sam and Tom, who just debuted for England, and Kyle Jarvis playing county cricket success- fully.

“We’ve got a lot of these guys out there whom we are trying to lure back. Part of their problem is the volume of cricket that Zimbabwe plays. That’s something that we can’t address, obviously. It’s a Catch 22 situation.

“We’ve got to play good competitive cricket for other countries to give us matches and that’s something we are really targeting (to do).

“Hopefully we can get some of those players to return to Zimbabwe and complement a talented group of players that we have brought to the shores of Sri Lanka.

‘’It’s going to be a challenge because of the lack of cricket. We have these big gaps in between series and that’s probably our biggest challenge to get the guys to get used to playing at elite level.” — Sports Reporter/Indian Express.