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WHEN Zimbabwe qualified, after some really good cricket, for the Super 12 stage in the International Cricket Council Men’s T20 World Cup 2022, they knew they would be playing against the top guns in cricket, and this as a team that had been regularly losing to others in the lower half of the full Test countries.

But with the side seriously improving, the long journey to Australia started. 

Because Zimbabwe’s run for the 2021 T20 was so bad, we had to start at the bottom in the Global Qualifier B, which we were allowed to host. 

We obtained our correct position, winning the tournament and so going on to Australia for that final 16.

There we had to go through another stage, the first round, as we were seriously in the bottom half of the 16, to qualify for the Super 12. 

So we beat Ireland, and we beat Scotland and topped our First Round Group B, and started being taken a lot more seriously again.

In a sense we were back where we should be, as a deserving full member of the ICC if not among the top six or seven countries who spend a lot of time playing each other, and not leaving many gaps in their schedules for the rest of the full members.

So in Group 2 of the Super 12 there we were, matched against India, Pakistan, South Africa, Bangladesh and The Netherlands, and you need to be in the top two to make the semi-finals.

But at least we were now back in the upper rungs.

From the sort of form we were seeing up to the beginning of this year, even making the Super 12 was a dodgy prediction, and then our place in the six teams of our group would, in many eyes, be in the bottom half with even sixth place not exactly ruled out. And to a degree, although a far lesser degree than before, doing much better was not something many might have expected.

The first Super 12 game, against South Africa, was eventually abandoned because of the heavy rain, although we should be honest and admit that South Africa were looking as though they could play water-cricket better than Zimbabwe in what amounted to a shallow swimming pool, hardly a reasonable test.

Then came Thursday and possibly the most thrilling game so far in the whole tournament, when Zimbabwe beat Pakistan, a seriously top team, by one run with the game having to go to the last possible ball. 

And right up to the last couple of balls, Pakistan were still the odds-on favourite, and if the strike batsman on that last ball had managed a pair of runs, instead of being run out, they would have won by that one run.

What we have seen with Zimbabwe over the past few months is a far better fighting spirit, an attitude that a game is never over until the last ball, a far better application of skills, and critically a lot of far smarter play.

All four applications are required for a top cricket nation. 

Beating Pakistan thrilled everyone. President Mnangagwa, who likes to keep tabs on all Zimbabweans competing and especially likes to mark the achievements, sent off his congratulations and the rest of us agree. 

But there is still the hard slog remaining in our Group 2. 

We need to play Bangladesh tomorrow, The Netherlands on Wednesday and the serious biggie of India the following Sunday. 

At the moment we lie third in the group, after India and South Africa, and we need to be at least second to make the semi-finals.

So the team has its work cut out. It basically must win at least two of those games to be within mathematical range, and even then we might need a decisive group winner so that there can be a bit of a melee for the second place. 

There are a number of lessons that almost all our sports teams can learn from the way Zimbabwe Cricket has been overseeing the resurrection of a side that, to be honest, was quite bad until fairly recently.

Administration was quite good, but the matches were not exactly packed out with spectators and the results were poor. 

One major change was to bring in David Houghton, a really serious Zimbabwe cricket veteran with experience of coaching English county sides, as first the coaching manager and then in June as the national team coach.

Houghton, one of the best ever cricketers from this country, has always shown strong loyalty to Zimbabwe as a player and coach and while he is now seriously in his 60s, he had the background, the experience of coaching as well as playing, and was a sensible choice. 

There is a trend, and not just in Zimbabwe, to look for a foreign coach and rule out the local person. 

There can be advantages in looking at foreigners, but never at ruling out the local coach. 

If you have a really good former national player with a good coaching career on hand and able to take over, then local advantage is an extra advantage. 

For a start the local coach knows the players a lot better than anyone descending from a plane can ever do. 

In this case while the oldest players were children when Houghton retired from active playing, he has seen them grow up and develop, and he knows the strengths and weaknesses better than someone armed only with the statistics. 

Secondly he can play the national angle better.

But thirdly, and this is personal, his coaching style is different, willing to build on each match and each game rather than achieve an overnight miracle. 

Houghton still wants to see each player play better next time, but is willing that they learn on that journey, instead of knowing it all when they start. 

That is easy when you are all in it together.

But already Zimbabwean cricket has been rejuvenated over the last few months, under both the last and the present coaches, with the team taking life a lot more seriously and working really hard at improving results. 

This is what we must all expect, and that is the sort of example that we need from our sports people.