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THERE have been many sporting failures for us over the years — the pain of the Warriors’ collapse at home against Zambia in 1993 when needing a victory to qualify for our first AFCON finals and their loss in Cameroon in the same year when a 1994 World Cup place loomed on the horizon has refused to be washed away by the passage of time.

Then there was that farce in July 2014 when our national rugby team, the Sables, with a golden opportunity for them to qualify for their first World Cup in over two decades was there for the taking, somehow messed up their lines against Kenya and instead of going for a try chose to kick for goal and then watched our dream turn into a nightmare.

A glorious opportunity for us to go to England for the 2015 Rugby World Cup was blown in the process and a team which had distinguished itself throughout that campaign in Madagascar came back home with nothing to show for their troubles.

Dynamos might be a football club, but in 1998 they flew our national flag with both honour and distinction as they shocked the world by eliminating powerful opposition from Nigeria, Tunisia and Ghana to book their place in the final of the CAF Champions League.

However, in the game that mattered, the Glamour Boys fell short and could not transform themselves into champions of Africa after a 2-4 defeat at the hands of Ivorian giants ASEC Mimosas amid the controversy of having their inspirational skipper Memory Mucherahowa missing the big game after being rushed to hospital following a sickening attack by the home players during warm-up.

We all felt the pain when our cricketers were clearly robbed, and eliminated at the 2015 ICC Cricket World Cup by Ireland when what was supposed to be a six by Sean Williams in Australia was somehow ruled to have been caught on the boundary when replays showed the Irish fielder had stepped on the fence.

Then there was that Mankad decision for our national cricket Under-19 in Bangladesh when Richard Ngarava was controversially run out at the non-striker’s end, in an act that sparked global outrage, and we failed to triumph in a game we were on course to win against the West Indies leading to our elimination from the ICC Under-19 World Cup.

And, to rub salt into our wounds, the Windies, who would have been eliminated if we had got the three runs we needed in that match, went all the way to win the tournament as if to confirm that we had a quality team that had the capacity to go all the way.

But, none of those defeats, controversial or otherwise, probably rank with the way our Chevrons conspired to crash out of the running for a place at the ICC Cricket World Cup in England next year when everything had been set for them to succeed.

They had the advantage of home conditions, something which is key in this game and they showed in Bulawayo they could go all the way when they defeated Afghanistan, a team which has become our bogey side of late and topped their group.

However, having been presented with two chances — beat the Windies on Monday or the amateurs of the United Arab Emirates on Thursday at Harare Sports Club and qualify for the World Cup — our Chevrons came short.

While their performance in the loss to the Windies was commendable, their surrender to the UAE, a team they can beat 10 times out of 10 in any other given circumstances was a shocker and pained a nation that had believed in them.

We have always been suspect when it comes to handling pressure as a team, in this game, and why our captain Graeme Cremer chose to field instead of bat, having won the toss, will always be a mystery to the followers of this game.

We had shown, now and again, that we could defend small targets, but in the game that mattered the most, Cremer decided to go for Plan B rather than settle for what we had been doing best in this tournament.

And when the rains came, things got complicated for us because the Duckworth Lewis Method is hostile to chasing teams and under pressure from the capacity crowd, our cricketers melted and came short by three runs.

The pain of that defeat is still being felt, but maybe, time has also come for us to take a look into the mirror and we will probably see that players like Hamilton Masakadza have run their course and while they have been good servants for their country, they should now hand the baton to others.

Only Sikandar Raza and Brendan Taylor and to some extent Williams when he returned from injury, played to expectations and with the consistency we expected from them while PJ Moor demonstrated that probably the time has now come for us to invest in our youths.

One cannot take away though the fact that we have proved many doubters wrong by hosting a very successful high-profile 10-team tournament and those who questioned our capacity have been left with a lot of egg on their face.