THE Zimbabwe national cricket team will be hoping to shine on the big stage of playing England in a historic one-off four-day Test match at Trent Bridge and show the world what they are made of.
Zimbabwe was invited by the England and Wales Cricket Board for the four-day Test after having not toured England since 2003.
Yesterday, they began their tour with Day 1 of a four-day warm up match against the Professional County Club Select XI.
The Test match against England, who named a strong side skippered by Ben Stokes and contains big hitters like Joe Root and Zak Crawley to mention two, will start on May 22.
It has attracted a lot of interest among cricket enthusiasts who follow the Chevrons.
Assistant coach Dion Ibrahim said they would take up the daunting England challenge as an opportunity to showcase their mettle.
“The fact that we get to play England after such a long time is super special,” he said ahead of the warm up match.
“It is important as a nation trying to claw our way back up the rankings as far as Test cricket is concerned to start performing against the top teams, individually and as a collective and see how good we are.”
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Ibrahim acknowledged the challenges of the England conditions, but said they would have to be able to overcome the differences of playing in different conditions.
Zimbabwe recently returned from a tour of Bangladesh, where they played two Tests in the spin friendly conditions of the sub-continent, but face a different challenge altogether in England.
“The need to adjust to different conditions is a necessity, so rather than creating too many demons around it (playing in tough England conditions), we have to have the tools and the strategy is to overcome the differences,” Ibrahim added.
He said their strategty would be to stick to the basics and make sure they polished them.
“Let’s not look too far and be able to narrow our basics and do them for long periods.”
In the warm up, Zimbabwe yesterday fielded what looks like their probable line-up for the Test match bar the possibility of Sikandar Raza coming in or the possibility of adding another seamer.
In the playing XI for the ongoing warm up match, they have Brain Bennett, Ben Curran, Nick Welch, Sean Williams, Craig Ervine, Wessley Madhevere, Tafadzwa Tsiga, Clive Madande, Wellington Masakadza, Richard Ngarava and Blessing Muzarabani.
Ibrahim said they would be looking to get used to the conditions and cement their game plan in this warm up match.
“There are a few things that we are really looking to get out of this match,” he said.
“One is getting further accustomed to the conditions while we are here in England and for the pitch conditions.
“So it’s a chance for both our bowlers and our batsmen to spend time in the middle. It is for all the players to start narrowing and solidifying what their game plan will look like.”
England squad: Ben Stokes (captain), Gus Atkinson, Shoaib Bashir, Harry Brook, Sam Cook, Jordan Cox, Zak Crawley, Ben Duckett, Ollie Pope, Matthew Potts, Joe Root, Jamie Smith, Josh Tongue
Zimbabwe squad: Brain Bennett, Ben Curran, Nick Welch, Sean Williams, Craig Ervine, Wessley Madhevere, Tafadzwa Tsiga, Clive Madande, Wellington Masakadza, Richard Ngarava and Blessing Muzarabani, Victor Nyauchi, Trevor Gwandu, Newman Nyamhuri, Sikandar Raza
