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Eddie Chikamhi-Senior Sports Reporter

Zimbabwe women’s cricket team edged closer to the 2023 ICC Women’s T20 World Cup following a flawless run at the Africa Qualifier which ended with a 13-run victory over Namibia yesterday.

The Lady Chevrons were the dominant team at the event and they produced an all-round performance in the final to ensure they wrapped up the qualifier, that was held in Botswana, with a 100 percent winning record.

Opening batter Chiedza Dhururu was voted Player of the Match for her match-winning knock of 44 runs as Zimbabwe opted to bat first and put on 133/4 in their 20 overs.

Namibia could only manage 120/9 and with that they ceded the sole ticket to the Global Qualifier to the regional champions, Zimbabwe.

The tougher Global Qualifier will feature eight nations, mostly from the ICC Regional qualifiers, will be held next year.

The ICC are still to advise about the host nation and the exact dates of the event where the top two teams from this final qualifier tournament will progress to the 2023 ICC Women’s T20 World Cup set for South Africa.

Zimbabwe coach Adam Chifo was excited by the efforts from his team during the one-week tournament which saw them play seven games and win all.

“We are very excited and happy with our performance during the tournament. Today’s match had so many lessons for us in so many ways and one thing we have learnt as a team is to believe more in ourselves.

“We had a good start with the bat and finished off well. We also had a good start with the ball and we were more disciplined but had two bad overs that threatened to take the game away from us. However, we kept cool heads and recovered,” said Chifo.

The Lady Chevrons won the toss and opted to bat first. The opening batting pair of Modester Mupachikwa (34) and Dhrururu gave them a good platform to build their innings after the two put on 76 runs.

They batted 11.5 overs until Mupachikwa, who finished as Zimbabwe’s leading scorer during the series, was trapped lbw Kayleen Green.

Zimbabwe suffered an unexpected setback when skipper Mary-Anne Musonda was bowled out for a golden duck the next ball to leave the scores on 76/2.

But Dhururu, who had started off slowly, picked up the pace and added 20 more runs with new batter Pellagia Mujaji for the third wicket. Dhururu was a victim of lbw to Merczerly Gorases.

By the time Zimbabwe lost the last wicket of the day, in another lbw decision, they had 128 runs on the board with just an over of batting remaining. Still 133 runs was a good total to defend considering the previous games they have played at the tournament.

Namibia started off slowly against some quality bowling. Nomvelo Sibanda gave the Zimbabweans the best start possible by claiming two wickets. She accounted for Sune Whitmann (4) and Yasmeen Khan (7).

Adri van der Merwe fought a lone battle at the top but Zimbabwe did well to contain her before she fell to Loreen Tshuma to leave the Namibians clinging on 47/3 after 11.3 overs.

The chase was always looking awkward for the Namibians but they managed to take the Zimbabwean bowlers in the final overs with Green (21 from 19 balls), Wika Mwatile 26 (from 24 balls) and Jurriene Diergaardt scoring an unbeaten on 12 from 18 balls.

Zimbabwe however kept on slowing them down by taking regular wickets as the soaring required run rate kept piling up the pressure on the Namibians to come out of their shells.

Every Zimbabwean bowler took a wicket yesterday with Sibanda, Josephine Nkomo, Precious Marange finishing with two scalps each.

Zimbabwe women’s cricket team will square off with the champions from four other regional qualifiers at the Global qualifier. They will be joined by the bottom two ranked teams in the Women’s T20I Rankings as of 30 November 2021 – from the teams that competed at the Australia 2020 event.

The final position, at the eight-team tournament, will be filled by the highest ranked nation in the regional qualifiers on the November cut-off date, who missed out on topping their regional event table.

The top two teams will then proceed to the 2023 ICC Women’s T20 World Cup set for South Africa.

“The next qualifiers are a stepping stone for us in our quest to join the top ranked cricket teams. So in essence the work has just begun,” said Chifo.

“Really a good show from the ladies despite the setbacks we have as a team on and off the field and it goes to show how much character we have in the change room.”