ZIM VS WI - 13th Match, Group A, ICC Cricket World Cup Qualifiers 2023

So it's Zimbabwe, Netherlands and West Indies advancing to the Super Sixes from this group. And Zimbabwe will carry forward 4 points and NRR to the Super Sixes because they beat both Netherlands and West Indies in the group stages. West Indies/Netherlands will carry forward only two points and the corresponding NRR - from their game on Monday - as they have lost their respective games to Zimbabwe. So this win is a massive boost for the hosts as they push for those final two spots to play the 2023 World Cup. It was a pleasure bringing you this game. Tomorrow Sri Lanka take on Ireland and Scotland play Oman in Group B to finalize the Super Sixes. See you on in a few hours time!

Indeed an emotional day for Zimbabwe as Craig Ervine said. They will take these points and net run rate to the Super Sixes. To win this game despite a fifty from Mayers and starts from 4 others of the top six is some effort. They understood the pitch, never tried anything fancy and forced the errors from the West Indies batters. Raza was a star once again with bat and ball, while all their front liners chipped in with wickets.

Craig Ervine: I think I have just picked out a calf strain, so I didn't want to strain it. I would have loved to be in the middle rather than watch this from the sidelines. Not really. Sean Williams is an experienced campaigner and he had it under control pretty much the whole time (asked if he was sending across messages from the dressing room). Having to bat first, to negotiate the first 10-15 overs was tricky as the pitch was two-paced to start with. We did get a few good partnerships together. Raza and Burl played really well. Other didn't kick on and we were 20-30 short of what would ideally be a winning score. We wanna take each game seriously. Every team is dangerous. Today has been quite an emotional day for everybody. It's been a long time since I heard they closed the gates at 11 in the morning.

Shai Hope: To be honest, too much is in my mind right now. Certainly a lot of hurt and disappointment. We let ourselves in the field. We want to play our best cricket, today we didn't do that. We let the chances slip. But we have to look at the positive as well. If we had to chase around 260, we would have taken that as a batting group. But we let ourselves down and we still have a lot of work to do and the tournament is not over yet. There will challenges on and off the field, trying to get the guys motivated will be a challenge. We need to be hard on ourselves. It is best to have a day off and get this loss out of the system, we to come hard come Monday and no excuses. Catches let us down, plain and simple. We've been asking to boys to create chances, they did that today but we let ourselves down. And then with the bat. If we had 260 to chase before the game started we would have happily taken that.

Sikandar Raza | Player of the Match: All I asked from the boys, doesn’t matter what skills we have. What we want is fight and courage, skills will look after itself. That’s what we got today. Burl has been amazing, he has been hungry in the change room, he has shown dedication towards his batting. Great to see him get a 50 today, unlucky the way he was dismissed. I personally felt we were 20-30 runs short, but we knew we could save them in the field. We have the hunger to get to India, to book that World Cup slot. Our fast bowlers are all good - Blessing, Tendai Chatara, Ngarava all chipped in. The bowlers won us the game today. I don’t think we could win this game with skills alone, what we needed was the fan support and they turned up today. We’ll now do a lap of honor for these fans.

16:53 Local Time, 14:53 GMT, 20:23 IST: How crucial was that 25-run last wicket stand for Zimbabwe? Chatara, what a day for him. First three overs for 24 runs and very disappointing. But he came back at the end and broke a promising stand between Holder and Chase and then cleaned up the lower-order. This is one of Zimbabwe's great victories in ODIs. They put at least 30 runs short on the board. But they had the belief to do it. To bowl out a line up that bats till 11 with an under-par score takes some effort. And the crowd was there for them when needed. Never a dull moment and always cheering their team. For sure did lift the morale of the players to pick themselves up. Now the Zimbabwean team is doing a lap of honour to thank this maginificent crowd for their support. West Indies literally had this in the bag. First they let the last wicket stand score 25 runs, didn't bowl their overs in time, didn't take their catches, played some poor and needless shots, in the end Zimbabwe held on for life and grabbed the rope tight to pull it to their favour. Captaincy was outstanding from Williams (Ervine was off the field due to a niggle) with bowling changes breaking partnerships. But they lost two in quick succession thrice till the middle-order and Zimbabwe broke open the door at the end.

Chatara to Alzarri Joseph, out Caught by Raza!! In the airrrr, taken at short mid-wicket. That is one of the loudest cheers heard in Harare. Two crucial points for Zimbabwe. Full delivery on the stumps, Alzarri flicks and hits it straight to hand. Raza takes the catch low, throws it up and runs off and the celebrations begin. It was always a celebration in the stands today. Akeal Hosein on his haunches in disbelief at the non-striker's end. Alzarri Joseph c Raza b Chatara 3(8)

Chatara to Alzarri Joseph, THATS OUT!! Caught!!

Chatara to Alzarri Joseph, no run, appeal, not just from the bowler but the capacity crowd, umpire Raveendra Wimalasiri keeps his cool and says no. Nothing on it. Short of a length delivery outside off stump, Alzarri tries to run it down to third man and misses

Chatara to Akeal Hosein, 1 run, tucks it to mid-wicket

Chatara to Akeal Hosein, no run, short delivery, Akeal defends off the back foot

Raza to Alzarri Joseph, 2 runs, darted into the pads, tucked towards deep backward square and Joseph hares back for the second run.

Raza to Alzarri Joseph, no run, short on off stump, turned to mid-wicket

Raza to Alzarri Joseph, no run, full delivery at the stumps, pushed back to the bowler

Raza to Alzarri Joseph, no run, length ball on middle and off, turned to short mid-wicket

Raza to Akeal Hosein, 1 run, covers the line and punches to long-on

Raza to Akeal Hosein, no run, quicker delivery on the stumps, Akeal punches towards the bowler

Raza to Alzarri Joseph, 4 wides, oh dear a poor delivery down leg, Alzarri Joseph has a big go at it but it was too far down leg, keeper can't collect and it misses everything. Diving save saves one

Chatara to Alzarri Joseph, 1 run, full and on the stumps, flicked to mid-on, Alzarri takes off and gets home before the direct-hit was made

Chatara to Alzarri Joseph, no run, short of length delivery, Alzarri pushes to the off-side