Northern Zimbabwe beat Southern Zimbabwe by 188 runs

 Always a bit heart breaking when a team puts up a decent performance when the game is already buried. Such was the case for Southern Zimabwbe today. After getting the North put for 272 in their second innings, they were in need of a huge 427 runs. After posting only 12 in their first dig it seemed unlikely. At 8-1 and 20-2, it seemed a humbling was on the cards. A staunch middle order resistance, led by Tafadzwa Tsiga, managed to haul them to 238 - still a gulf of 188 runs.

The second game starts on Sunday. 

Zimbabwe Regional Games Day Two

 The North's captain, Wessley Madhevere, added insult to the South's injury by opening up a 405 run lead with a further three days to go in this match.

After bowling the South out for a mere 102 and thus opening a lead of 154. Madhevere might feel like heaping more misery on tomorrow as he is 15 runs away from his century overnight. 

Zimbabwe Regional Games Day One

 Sikandar Raza was the star of this twice yearly face off pitting the Northern teams vs the South. Raza scored 131 of the North's 256 runs. In reply the South lost 4 wickets for 33 runs in 10 overs.

This is the North's to lose. 

Zimbabwe Cricket Women's Fifty50 Challenge Day One

 Today marked the start of Zimbabwe Cricket Women's Fifty50 Challenge with all 4 teams in action.

Mashonaland's Olinda Chare was the difference as her 4-21 helped Matabeleland fall 27 runs short of the target of 145 in a thrilling game in Harare.

The performance of the day has to be from the Rhinos' Ashley Ndiraya who began the match with 3 wickets as the Mountaineers were all out for 130. She then, almost single-handedly polished off that total within 18 runs; scoring 87* off 66 balls.

Matches continue on Monday with the two winning teams today facing off against each other. 

Logan Cup Update

 The Mountaineers were nothing if not consistent in this fixture. After getting 265 in their first dig, they bettered that by 4 runs second time out. Timycen Maruma was their top scorer with 67.

This left Southern Rocks needing 58 runs in reply. They made something of a meal of it and needed 3 wickets to get there - but there were playing at a T20 lick. The win narrows the gap between the Rocks and the Mountaineers to 10 points.

In the other match, Mashonaland beat the hapless Mid West Rhinos by 157 runs in 3 days.

It's all change in terms of highest runscorer and most wickets. Craig Ervine scored his second successive century for Matabeleland in the last round of fixtures and is therefore top of the tree with 629; 99 more than his nearest rival. His teammate Ernest Masuku got 6 wickets in the same fixture to give him 36@23.44. 

Logan Cup Innings Break Update

 

As predicted, The Mountaineers could not produce the goods in their first innings and fell 212 short of the target.

Cuthbert Musoko was the main cause of The Mountaineers pain as he proved both destructive and restrictive with figures of 14.2-7-15-5.

They have been asked to follow on. 

CSA T20 Challenge Update

 

It's looking pretty likely that we have our 4 semi finalists. Western Province and Titans are dead certs after having won 5 of their six games. Places 3, 4 and 5 are held by Boland, Dolphins and North West who all have a game in hand. Boland are home and dry and it is just between the latter two who play tomorrow.

Tristan Stubbs is gaining some real traction on this tournament with many cricketing hipster clamouring for his national debut after he has scored 275 St an average of 55. The bowling charts are a bit tighter but Western Province's Junaid Khan has 10 at an average of 11.9 which is more than decent. 

BPL Round Up

Comilla ran out victios in this year's BPL in a very narrow final where Barishal needed 10 runs in the final over - but managed only 9. Earlier Barishal looked strong favourites but a late collapse put their title hopes in the bin and allowed the Imrul Kayes'  led team to lift the trophy.

Will Jacks had a stunning tournament with 414 runs @41.40 for Chattogram whilst Comilla's Mustafizur Rahman was the stand out bowler with 19 @13.47. 

Logan Cup Innings Break Update

 The Southern Rocks won the toss and elected to bat .....a day and a half ago. Since then they have racked up a huge total of 477 runs in 157 overs. This is in no small part due to Cephas Zhuwao who contributed 152 runs.

The Mountaineers now have 20 overs which should give us some indication of how this game is going to go. 

Men’s T20 World Cup Qualifier

Today marks the start of the qualifiers for this year’s T20 World Cup with 8 associate nations split between two groups.

 

Nepal should be considered one of the front runners and looked in a bit of bother when they were all out for 117 runs in their opening fixture against Oman. Kamel Singh Airee got 3 wickets as the Nepalis rattled Oman out for a mere 78.

 

As is often the case in Associate competitions there were some whoopings. Canada got 216-1 against the Phillipnes before the island nation were all out for a 118 run deficit. Matthew Spoors was the key force in the Canadian attack with 108. Bahrain looked good against Germany with the name of Junaid Aziz standing out with figures of 1.4-0-5-5.

 

Games continue through to Thursday. 

National Super League Limited Over Tournament Group Stage Round Up

                                               

Kandy and Jaffna both won the final games of the round Robin section of the tournament before they meet in the final on Saturday.

Niroshan Dickwella brought some of his big energy to Kandy's final foray as, with nothing to lose, he scored the tournament's second biggest total. His 135 helped Kandy to 343/6. A decent middle order salvo could not save Galle who fell 66 runs short.

Jaffna's Dhananjaya de Silva has had a sterling back half of the tournament. He averaged 40.75 in the first half of the tournament and 74.5 in the second - including two centuries and a half century today. He will be the top run scorer in the competition.

Pulina Tharanga will also be top wicket taker with 18, his nearest active rival has 11. 

Logan Cup Update

 

Despite one of their better performances of the season, the Mid West Rhinos were nowhere close as they slumped to a loss to the Mountaineers.

In at 7, Jonathan Campbell top scored for the Rhinos with 68 forcing the Mountaineers to bat again. The target of 100 was child's play for the Mountaineers who got there in 14 overs.

The other game is more tightly balanced as Matabeleland need 171 runs with six batsmen remaining on the final day. 

CSA T20 Challenge Update

 

Another round of this tournament has been cometed with some thrilling games over the weekend.

The most thrilling game was Boland's game against the North West that went down to a super over. Chasing 182, the North West looked like they were letting it slip away from them but Dwaine Pretorius' 51 ball 74 got them back on track. With 8 needed in the final over, it went down to (and beyond) the line. A 4 off the final ball brought on the super over. As things go it was a bit of a damp squib. The North West scored a 6 but then lost 2 wickets in succession to bring an end to proceedings. Boland won it in three balls.

Western Province beat the Lions in today's morning match to make it three wins in three to top the table.

The Warriors' Tristan Stubbs is having a decent competition. After scores of 51 and 21 in the first two matches he got 80* against the Dolphins yesterday to put him 26 points clear as the highest run scorer. All rounder Jason Smith has the most wickets with 6 for the Dolphins.

Games continue through the week with third placed Dolphins versus fourth placed Titans the Premier fixture tomorrow. 

Logan Cup Update

 

The Mid West Rhinos put up more of a fight then could have been expected with three wickets in the morning session but Wellington Masakadza's 116 ball 84 put them back on track. They ended with 323 - a lead of 139.

The Rhinos went down 44-3 in the 16 overs to spare.

The Southern Rocks lead by 140 runs after bowling out Matabeleland for 183. 

Logan Cup Update

 

The main fixture of this round of the Logan Cup is bottom placed Mid West Rhinos against second spot Mountaineers.

As it stands it is going to the form book with the Rhinos all out for 184. Their stand out player and captain Takudzwanashe Kaitano scored a shocking 59% of those; perhaps telling the tale of the Rhinos lack of form. Only one other batter got into double figures.

In reply, the Mountaineers are 112-2 after 37 overs.

In the other game Southern Rocks are 242-6 against Matabeleland.

CSA T20 Challenge Update

 

The second round of the CSA T20 Challenge finished off today.

The two front runners thus far are North West and Western Province with 2 wins from 2 with Boland and the Knights at the mirror end of the table with nul points.

The Warriors Wilhan Lubbe leads the run scoring courtesy of a score of 56 in their victory over the Titans and 69* in their loss to WP yesterday.

There are no fewer than 4 players tied at the top of the wicket taking tally but North West's Johannes Diseko has his at the lowest average of 9.

The next round of games starts on Saturday. 

National Super League Limited Over Tournament Update

 

 It's a battle of the Fernandos in the National Super League Limited Over Tournament; today and overall.

Colombo's Fernando (Nuwanidu) finished top dog today with 112 off 133 balls but it was the rival Fernando (Oshada) who won the day as Kandy won yet again. Colombo's Fernando is the overall top run scorer with 328, 20 more than Oshada. Kandy's impressive form in the competition now means they have a 6 point lead on Jaffna in second.

Another Kandy player takes top wicket taking honours as Pulina Tharanga has 15 @ 15.26. 

Men's Cricket World Cup League 2 Update

 

I think I know an awful lot about cricket and there is probably very rarely a 3 or 4 hour period of time where I am not checking cricket results. I also think I am of above average intelligence. With all this in mind if I don't have a scooby doo of what's going on in the Cricket World Cup League 2 competition, there must be vast swathes of people who don't even know where to start.

For a start there is Oman who are at the top of the table after having played 21 games whilst in 6th lies their current competitors the UAE who have played 8. Another confusing thing is that normally this is a little Associates Asemble tournament with four or five teams all rocking up and having a round Robin. This series of games appears to just be Oman playing the UAE three times. I get that some of this confusion will be covid related but it is still rather baffling.

This aside it was a pretty decent game today with 2 centuries and 615 runs shared between the two teams. In the end it was the team that boasted the highest individual scorer, Chirag Suri, who ran out winners. His 115 runs saw the UAE throw up an upset (maybe, possibly, who knows) and chase down Oman's total of 307.

For what it's worth the two totals today eete the second and third highest of the tournament.

The second game is tomorrow.