THE Zimbabwe national women’s cricket team are on the verge of making history by becoming the first team to win gold at the African Games should they see off neighbours South Africa in the final slated for Accra, Ghana, this afternoon.
The trailblazing Lady Chevrons are yet to lose a match at the Games after accounting for Rwanda, Uganda and Kenya in their group fixtures before a five-wicket win over Nigeria in the semi-finals on Monday.
South Africa on the other hand suffered a defeat in the group stages after falling to Namibia by one run.
They, however, dusted themselves up to win all their matches as well as the semi-final clash against Uganda to book a date with Zimbabwe in today’s final.
The returning trio of vice-captain and all-rounder Josephine Nkomo, wicketkeeper batter Modester Mupachikwa and top order batter Sharne Mayers brought added depth into the side.
Mupachikwa got the player of the match awards in the matches against Rwanda and Uganda and became the first Zimbabwean female batter to score 1000 T20I runs.
“Obviously, all three represents experience within our batting department which has been a concern against Ireland. They were sorely missed and certainly in India to some extent,” Lady Chevrons head coach Walter Chawaguta told reporters in Accra.
“Their coming back and getting reintegrated into the team helps restructure our batting which has been a concern since the recent past. They bring in a lot of balance. Jose is a good all-rounder, she’s our best all-rounder and that’s what we need.”
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Zimbabwe are using these games as part of their preparations for the ICC Women’s T20 World Cup Global Qualifiers set for United Arab Emirates next month.
“It’s good for our confidence, the Global Qualifiers might be a slight touch higher than the African Games definitely we are facing the same level of pressure where there’s expectations for us to do well. That’s a challenge on our part but that’s exactly what we need; pressure games, high pressure games before the Global Qualifiers,” added Chawaguta.
“We agreed as a team that there’s pressure and we are going to embrace pressure. I believe if our methods and processes are right, the results will take care of themselves.”
