“Full Member teams definitely they have better game plans. They play a good brand of cricket. But Associate nations are no less than the Full Members,” he insisted. “The only thing is we hardly get a chance to play them. If we play them more, our level will go up.”
“Warm-ups are there just for an indication,” Raza noted. “We haven’t played T20 cricket for two and a half months… ideally we wanted to win both games as well, but most importantly there was a bigger picture and we got what we wanted out of those warm-ups.”
The “bigger picture” for Zimbabwe was simply acclimatisation; they play all their matches in Sri Lanka, and the sooner you get used to the conditions the better.
“It was to read the wickets, what sort of wickets we will have at the Premadasa. I know we don’t have a game at CCC [Colombo Cricket Club, where the warm-up was played] but similar-ish. So it was more to read the surfaces, what sort of shots, what sort of options are on. Also some game time, the boys ended up having 40, 50, 60 balls under their belt in a match situation in those two games.”
For Oman, as Jatinder puts it, the plan is simple: “Positive, good, fearless cricket.” On Monday, we will see which school of thought prevails.
