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Brandon Moyo

FOLLOWING the completion of the two unofficial Test matches on Saturday, action between Zimbabwe Emerging and South Africa Emerging now shifts to white-ball cricket with the first of the three 50-over matches pencilled for Queens Sports Club today. 

The two sides face off in the one-dayer today with both teams hoping to hit the ground running immediately. The hosts, Zimbabwe Emerging will be hoping to redeem themselves in the one-day games while the visitors, South Africa Emerging will be eyeing the double having won the Test series 1-0. 

Zimbabwe Emerging head coach, Steve Mangongo is confident that his team will be able to immediately switch gears from red-ball cricket to the white-ball version of the game. Mangongo said he is hopeful that, with aggressive cricket, they will be able to get a good result from the three-match series. 

He added that it would be good to seal a home series. 

“Well, this is professional cricket and in professional cricket, you don’t have the time to move from one game to the other but when you have the skill sets, you should be able to adapt. 

“So, we are looking forward to the one-day series, we are looking forward to making sure that we are at home and we play and dominate, and perhaps from the four-day series to the one-day series we would like to win that. So we are coming in to play some aggressive brand of one-day cricket and execute to the best of our abilities, and hopefully, the results will come our way,” said Mangongo. 

South Africa Emerging is under the stewardship of Malibongwe Maketa, who shared similar sentiments. Maketa believes that whoever will be disciplined in the field, will go away with the series.

He added that they will stick to their basics as they hope to walk away with the series win and complete the double over the hosts. 

“It’s going to be good hard cricket again, we anticipate. It’s a quick turnaround which means our players have to recover quickly and looking at the wicket, it’s a good batting wicket so the team that bowls the best, we know is going to have a good chance of winning the series and we are working hard to be that team. In terms of intent, we know the wicket is good here so that is going to be important for us. 

“We are going to keep doing the basics well, looking at making sure we have partnerships in bowling and batting and we always find that when we field well, and bring good energy, we are always competing and that is what we are going to strive to do,” said Maketa. 

Today’s encounter is scheduled to start at 9.30 am and fans have been called in to come in numbers and witness enthralling cricket between the two Emerging teams that both boast of exciting talents. All matches are free of charge to all fans thus the call to fill up Queens Sports Club. 

After today’s encounter, the remaining two games are pencilled in for Thursday and Saturday at the same venue.