Zimbabwe vs Nepal, 1st Match, Group A at Harare, CWC Qualifier, Jun 18 2023 - Match Result

Thank you for your company and hope you enjoyed our coverage. It's time for me, Rvel Zahid, to say goodbye on behalf of my co-commentator Danyal Rasool and our scorer Sudeep Pojari. We will see you very soon. Adios!

Despair on one hand and joy on the other. It was a well-fought game between these two spirited teams. In the end, the quality and experience of the Zimbabwe side proved far superior as the two centurions made sure there were no hiccups along the way. The home team would be very delighted to bag the first win in front of a jam-packed crowd; enterprising knocks from Craig Ervine and Sean Williams - who slammed Zimbabwe's fastest-ever century - ensured the game was only headed in one direction. The duo completely deflated Nepal's spirits and were at no stage flustered.

Fans certainly got their money's worth in the tournament's opener. But there were plenty of positives for Nepal as well. They were superb with the bat as Kushal Bhurtel led the way with a spellbinding 99 and Aasif Sheikh chipped in with 66 with decent contributions from the middle-order batters. The platform was set to go berserk in the last 10 overs but Zimbabwe managed to put a lid on the score at the death thanks to their well-oiled bowling attack. Nepal's star player Sandeep Lamichanne failed to provide them with breakthroughs and went wicketless in his spell, conceding 77 in his quota of overs. Nobody looked threatening enough to rip through Zimbabwe's batting line-up and so Nepal needs to go back to the drawing board and come up with better bowling plans for their next game.

Rohit Paudel, Nepal Captain: "I thought we did not bowl to our expectations, especially in the middle overs. We could have done better but having said that, they batted really well. We thought anything around 280 to 300 would be a good score but when I saw the wicket later, I felt we were 10 to 15 runs short. Maybe 310 to 315 would have been par. I would say to keep our head high and look forward to the next game against USA."

Craig Ervine,  Zimbabwe Captain: "We didn't start really well, dropped catches cost us but credit to the guys for pulling it back. We thought that 280/290 would be chaseable because the wicket looked very nice. We thought there would be a little bit more movement early on but the wicket played really well today. The conditions were very good, their openers batted well but we didn't take our early chances. Credit to them, they put us under pressure in the early part of their innings. We were just trying to break down into small chunks during the chase, and trying to concentrate on where the gaps are and what the bowlers are trying to do. I think it's well played today, rest day tomorrow and a quick turnaround when we play the Netherlands next on Tuesday. I feel pretty ecstatic, we knew it was a decent wicket to bat on so it was about giving ourselves a chance. It's been really good, leading up to this and scoring some runs. Hopefully, I can continue like this. As a team, we always like to dominate batting second. You look all around the wicket, from the 10 over mark to the 40 over mark, there are five fielders in the ring so there are always boundary options. I thought we were staring down the barrel of 340 but our bowlers did really well to pull things back. I thought 290 was below par."

Prem Karki: "We have to give credit to Medhevere for his good partnership with Ervine"

Ranil Herath: "Hats off to Zimbabwe for the professional way chasing a big target even though not a top league opponent."

Sawin: "What Nepal lacks is a good pair of pacers" I agree. The pitch had enough assistance for the bowlers but they lacked a potent pace attack

Thilini: "That was a fantastic and exciting chase by Zimbabwe. Congratulations to Craig Ervine and Sean Williams."

Manisha Kharya: "That's the fastest century in ODIs for Zimbabwe by Sean Williams!"

KabooPradeep Gurung : "It's Nepal's old habit to start any tournament with loss and then come back and qualify through net run rate.Hope for all round performance in remaining games. "m!

Swept with power