GRAEME NISH
MASVINGO CITY-Masvingo’s Southern Rocks cricket team kept their hopes of securing a spot in the final of the the Pro 50 championship’s alive with back to back wins against the Matabeleland Tuskers at Masvingo Sports Club last Friday and Sunday.
With the Mashonaland Eagles having already secured a berth in the finals thanks to seven wins from eight matches, the Rocks’ two games against the Midwest Rhinos in KweKwe at the end of this month will effectively determine which of those two teams will join them, The Mountaineers and Tuskers currently fourth and fifth on the table will not be able to move to second place whatever the results of their final games.
Realistically the Rocks will have to win both of their matches against the Rhinos to snatch a berth in the finals.
Both last week ends matches between the Rocks and the Tuskers were closely fought affairs. On Friday, the Rocks batting first put together a total of 233 for 7 in their 50 overs with wicketkeeper/batsman Tafadzwa Tsiga scoring 77 not out and receiving good support from Brian Mudzinganyama (47); Richmond Mutumbami (26) and Tendai Chisoro (24).
It was a reasonable total given their poor start to the innings with top order batters Cephas Zhuwao and Roy Kaia falling cheaply before Mudzinganyama; Mutumbami and Tsiga steadied the innings.
In reply the Tuskers fell just 15 runs short of that target. They also suffered a bad start losing opener Hamid Ali to Trevor Gwandu in the first over of the innings. They needed someone to put together a big innings but whilst their tope and middle order all got reasonable starts none of them could kick on to produce a match winning score. With wickets falling regularly the Tuskers could never quite match the required run rate despite valiant efforts from tailenders Luke Jongwe (42) and Brandon James (15).
On Sunday the Rocks chose to field first and looked set to post a score in excess of 300 but some tight bowling from the Rocks in the middle and late overs restricted the Tuskers to 282. The standout batter for their side was Brian Chari who made a brilliant 113 sharing a third wicket partnership with Milton Shumba, of 185 runs in 32 overs with Shumba making 77.
Pick of the bowlers for the Rocks was Trevor Gwandu who may have been a little expensive but he did take five wickets and effected a run out. The Kaia cousins, Innocent and Roy made a valuable 77 for the second wicket after the early loss of opener Mudzinganyama.
With the Rocks score on 266 for 5 in the 38th over, it was still a game the Tuskers may have won, but they could not remove the Rocks pair of Tsiga who scored 44 and William Mashinge who made 26 and who were both there at the end to see the Rocks home with three overs to spare.
Chari and Gwandu shared the man of the match award of US$125.
