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Eddie Chikamhi Senior Sports Reporter

ZIMBABWE women’s cricket team coach, Adam Chifo, has saluted Precious Marange for her player-of-the-match knock which secured the Lady Chevrons a place in the ICC Women’s T20 World Cup Africa Qualifier final tomorrow.

They beat Uganda women by 14 runs after surviving an early scare in their innings.

They will face Namibia in the final tomorrow.

Namibia beat Tanzania by two wickets in another semi-final clash.

Zimbabwe are the only team that have maintained a 100 percent winning run, since the start of the tournament.

And, Chifo is confident they will get the desired result tomorrow to clinch the sole ticket to represent Africa at the Global qualifiers.

“We will continue to stay positive and stick to our processes, nothing more, and nothing less,’’ he said.

‘’We believe in our abilities and we know we are a good team, we just need to turn up on the day.’’

The Zimbabweans fought back with the ball after they had struggled with the bat on winning the toss.

The side had a top order batting malfunction on their way to 108/6 in their 20 overs, thanks to a late rally by the lower middle order.

Zimbabwe slumped to 44/5,with just over 13 overs played but player-of-the-match, Marange gave the Lady Chevrons a fighting chance with her brave knock down the batting order.

“Obviously, we were a little bit under pressure when we didn’t make use of the power play but we have so much depth in our batting,” said Chifo.

“All we needed was one of us to come to the party and Precious Marange did that with ease and brought us back in the game.

“With our bowling attack, all we needed was 100 runs on the board and once we went past, we knew we have enough armour, in our bowling to defend.”

Marange powered to an impressive career best batting performance of 40 runs, off 25 balls, which included three sixes, and three boundaries.

She had good company in the consistent Loreen Tshuma 22 (from 21 balls) as the lower middle order gave Zimbabwe bowlers something to defend.

In response, Uganda were bowled out for 94 runs.

Esther Mbofana was the pick of the Zimbabwean bowlers with her 3/16.

Tasmeen Granger took 2/16 while there was a wicket each for Josephine Nkomo, Tshuma and Marange.