Zimbabwe’s senior men’s cricket team, the Chevrons, has failed to qualify for the World Cup despite topping the log standings in their qualifier group for some time.
During their last two Super Six matches, Zimbabwe needed two points to qualify for the Cricket World Cup, but they squandered both opportunities against an International Cricket Council full member and an associate side, just like in 2018.
In the recent match against Scotland, Zimbabwe needed to win, but they were bundled out for 41.1 overs, with Ryan Burl (83) and Wessley Madhevere (40) being the only batsmen to put up a fight. The team’s captain, Craig Ervine, expressed his disappointment after the match. He said:
It’s a very difficult pill to swallow. I thought we did well to restrict them to 230. Unfortunately, that first initial spell from (Chris) Sole really put us on the back foot and just made it hard for us to recover from that position. Throughout the tournament, we played some extremely good cricket. It’s always nice to put those demons from 2018 behind us and had we gotten over the line today, nobody would have been asking about that unfortunately, we didn’t.
The loss was a significant disappointment for the team and its fans, who had high hopes going into the match. Although Zimbabwe challenged Scotland to put up a formidable total on the board, they failed to chase it down, losing several key wickets early in their innings.
The loss left many fans questioning what went wrong for a team that had been performing well until this match. Despite the loss, Madhevere’s performance was a bright spot, as he played one of his better innings of late. This defeat adds to a long list of sporting heartbreaks for Zimbabwe, including many inflicted by the national senior soccer team, the Warriors.