Zimbabwe confident to beat New Zealand (19 October 1998)

19 October 1998

Zimbabwe confident to beat New Zealand

By Zahid Newaz in Dhaka

Zimbabwe, with high morale after beating India in a one off test, is confident of making the final eight of Wills International Cup by defeating New Zealand in the lone pre-quarter final.

"All the players are highly confident to beat New Zealand following our last 18 months' good performance and recent win against India," said Zimbabwean skipper and hard-hitting batsman Alistair Campbell.

"We consider ourselves still in the bottom in the cricketing world, but we have the ability to do better as we defeated Pakistan and India in last one and a half years," he told a press conference on Sunday.

Campbell said New Zealand is also a good one-day side and they have some good one-day specialists like Chris Harris. Zimbabwe takes on New Zealand on October 24 in the inaugural match of the Wills Cup.

"We are balanced in all departments of one-day cricket and our fielding is specially better," Campbell said.

The Zimbabwean skipper said they have good batting line-up including the Flower brothers, Murray Goodwin and also bowling side with world class fast bowler Heath Streak and leg spinner Paul Strang.

Campbell, who is known as "kamba" among his teammates, said Dhaka is not a new venue to them as they had been here in 1993. "We also had lot of cricket in the sub-continent. So we are aware of condition of cricket in this part."

Asked about favourites for the Wills Cup, Campbell said every team is favourite as all the nine test-playing countries are taking part in the knock-out basis tournament which is a one-chance and lucky game. "However, Pakistan, Sri Lanka and India are promising for the tournament as they are of the sub-continent and all of them are giants for world cricket," said Campbell who began his international career in February 1992.

He described Bangladesh crowd as "very good, cheerful, patient and sympathetic" and said, "We're glad to be here for developing cricket across the world under the auspices of International Cricket Council.

Echoing captain Campbell's statement, Zimbabwean manager Babu Meman said: We are a good side. Our spirit is very high after the sweet test win against India and not bad performance in one-day series also.

Alistair Campbell (capt), Andy Flower, Gavin Rennie, Grant Flower, Craig Wishart, Murray Goodwin, Craig Evans, Paul Strang, Heath Streak, Neil Johnson, Mpumelelo Mbangwa, Andrew Whittall, Henry Olonga, Adam Huckle.

Source :: CricInfo365