World Cup Qualifier 2023: Zimbabwe's World Cup dreams got ended on Tuesday after giant killers Scotland defeated the Chevrons at the Queens Sports Club, Bulawayo. Despite Zimbabwe batters' best efforts to make a comeback after the loss of early wickets in the chase, the Qualifier hosts fell 31 runs short of the 235-run target. Ryan Burl's 80 went in vain as he could not take his side home despite staying on the crease for a long time.
The Scot bowlers proved to be too hot to handle and were led by Chris Sole, who did the major damage to push the hosts on the back foot. He took big guns Craig Ervine and Sean Williams along with Joylord Gumbie to dent the Chevrons' batting. Later Sikandar Raza, Ryan Burl and Wessly Madhevere tried putting impetus to the chase and taking their team deep into the game but regular scalps saw Zimbabwe on the wrong end in another humdinger match.
Batting first, Scotland managed to get 234 without any fifty from the team. Lower middle-order batter Michael Leask was the top-scorer of the team, whereas Matthew Cross was behind him on 38 as contributions came from many batters but none could go big.
In Zimbabwe's batting, none of the top four batters could touch the 15-run mark as Sole ran through the top order with his wonderful swinging deliveries. Scotland might have had a mini heart attack when Raza was dropped on 6 by Chris Greaves. But the off-spinner came on to redeem himself taking out Raza in his first over with the Zimbabwe all-rounder making 34.
Ryan Burl was the brightest star for the hosts, keeping their hopes alive. He and Madhevere added 73 runs for the 6th wicket. Zimbabwe were 37/4 but few contributions kept them alive. However, Michael Leask took probably the most wicket of the day in the form of Burl and that was the killer blow as the final wicket fell after adding just 6 runs for 203.
Now Scotland and Netherlands are the only two teams that have chances to qualify along with Sri Lanka for the tournament in India. Zimbabwe have 6 points in Super Six and have an inferior net run rate to the other teams in the reckoning.
