Sikandar Raza was all emotional and out of words after his team's impressive victory over Pakistan by one run on October 27, Thursday. Raza bowled a brilliant spell, conceding 25 runs, and taking 3 wickets in his quota of four overs.
"One more thing I thought. There was a small clip sent to me this morning of Ricky Ponting having a small word. I was excited, I was nervous, I was thrilled about today. The motivation was always there but if I needed a little push, I thought that clip did a wonder so thanks very much to Ricky as well. "I think I'm lost for words. My throat's dry, probably because of all the emotions. I can't tell you how proud I am of this bunch of boys," Raza said at the post-match presentation.
Raza then went on to say that he was impressed by the way the team's seamers bowled.
"The way our seamers started at the top as well is just unbelievable and the way we backed it up in the field and the way we kept believing, I don't think there are any words I can share right now."
Raza sent a wrist-tapping signal to his captain Craig Ervine. This is what it was about.
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"When we were coming to Australia, I said to my captain, 'If you become Man of the Match, pick any watch from the catalogue and I'll buy you. But if I win Man of the Match, then you're gonna buy me one. So I'm just reminding him that you now owe me three watches now actually."
Zimbabwe captain Ervine said that at the halfway mark, they thought that they were 2-25 runs short.
"Especially for the work that we did to get into the Super 12s and we didn't want our tournament to end there. We wanted to come in and play some really good cricket against some top teams. We did that exceptionally well today. I thought after our batting performance, we thought that we were maybe 20 or 25 short. But our seamers hit their straps early on and there was just a little bit more in the wicket compared to when we started off," Ervine said.
On Raza, he said, "He came to the party as he always does and picked up a few crucial wickets in the middle there. I think he's got three Man of the Matches so I'm gonna be broke by the time we get home."
With all said and done, the loss was a shocking one for Pakistan and the team was visibly shaken after it. They next face South Africa, who are scheduled to take on India on Sunday.
