Published by the government of Zimbabwe
Augustine Hwata
6 January 2009
Harare — ZIMBABWE captain Prosper Utseya believes his side will be under pressure to perform better on this current tour of Bangladesh to silence the growing criticism over the state of cricket in the country.
The team left on Saturday and arrived in the Indian sub-continent the following day for a three-week tour that will also involve a triangular series with Sri Lanka and the hosts.
Zimbabwe start their tour with a three-day match against Bangladesh's Academy today.
The busiest part of their tour will begin on Saturday when they engage Sri Lanka and the hosts in the GrameenPhone Tri-Nation Cup running until January 14 at the Sher-e-Bangla National Stadium in Mirpur in the Bangladeshi capital Dhaka.
The top two sides from the triangular competition will progress to the final two days later and Utseya is confident that his side will grab one of the two places in the final.
According to reports from Dhaka, Utseya said a decent showing in Bangladesh would bring some measure of respect to his team that has taken a sabbatical on Test matches since 2005.
Last month, Zimbabwe were handed a 5-0 drubbing by Sri Lanka in Harare and now seek to gain some respect from the games, especially against Bangladesh.
"The pressure is on us against Bangladesh because we should be beating them," Utseya was quoted as saying.
The Zimbabwe skipper is looking much into history records when Zimbabwe teams have done very well against Bangladesh.
"Previous Zimbabwe teams used to beat them quite easily.
"We recently lost 5-0 to Sri Lanka, but against Bangladesh the pressure is different," he said.
Unlike Sri Lanka, Utseya believes there is not much of a gulf between Zimbabwe and Bangladesh in terms of standards.
"We are sort of in the same league, numbers nine and 10 on the ODI rankings, and when you play another lowly team there is always pressure to win," said Utseya.
"We are currently out of the Test arena and, as we speak, I hear some people are saying we mustn't even be playing ODIs," Utseya told the Associated Press.
"This is distressing.
"We need to go there and show that we still belong here.
"Our aim is to reach the tri-series final and win the series against Bangladesh."
After the triangular series, Zimbabwe will on the 19th, 21st and 23rd of this month play one-day internationals against Bangladesh.
During their last visit to Bangladesh, in 2006, Zimbabwe lost all five ODIs and a Twenty20 international.
Bangladesh defeated them 3-1in the ODIs on their visit to Zimbabwe in 2007.
The 14-man squad led by Utseya arrived in Dhaka mid-morning on Sunday and, according to reports, was joined an hour later by opening batsman Vusimuzi Sibanda, who flew in from his club base in Australia.
Wicketkeeper Tatenda Taibu has also been included for the tour as are Malcolm Waller and Forster Mutizwa who have been brought in to help the batting.
There is no place though for Chamu Chibhabha.
The travelling party then took a four-hour road trip to the northern city of Bogra where they will engage the academy starting today at the at the Shaheed Chandu Stadium.
After the tour, Zimbabwe will pass through Kenya for five ODI matches against that country, to help them with their preparations for the International Cricket Council Cricket World Cup qualifiers.
Bangladesh have been playing Sri Lanka as from last week.
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