NAGPUR: From the edge-of-the-seat India-England tied thriller at Bangalore to a lop-sided encounter between Zimbabwe and Canada at VCA Stadium here on Monday. That said the story of the Group ‘A’ match where in the battle between two minnow teams, a superior Zimbabwe stamped their class with an authoritative 175-run win over Canada. After losing to Australia in the opening match, Zimbabwe recorded their first win while the hapless Canada tasted their second defeat.
Zimbabwe ran into a turbulent weather at the start as they lost the first wicket off the very first ball and the second at seven. But man-of-the-match Tatenda Taibu (98; 99 balls, 9x4) and elegant left-hander Craig Ervine (85; 81 balls, 6x4, 2x4) took the game away from Canada with a 181-run stand for the third wicket. That virtually killed Canada’s hopes. Zimbabwe took the fast lane to victory to post 298 for 9 in 50 overs and then bundled out Canada for 123 in 42.1 overs.
Canada were also in the dumps from the start but they did not have the batsman in the class of Taibu or Ervine to rally them. Seasoned left-arm spinner Raymond Price (3 for 16), who bowled the second over, strangled the Canadian top order by removing the oldest and youngest players — 41-year-old John Davison and debutant 16-year-old Nitish Kumar — and skipper Ashish Bagai in the second and sixth over. Canada, who slumped to 7 for 3 in 5.4 overs, could never recover from that disastrous start. Davison lasted eight deliveries before being bowled while Nitish faced two balls more to be brilliantly caught and bowled by Price. Although medium pacer Chris Mpofu walked off the field with a hamstring injury, the other spinners Prosper Utseya (2 for 24) and Graeme Cremer (3 for 31) ran through the Canadian batting.
Earlier, Canada made a dream start. Khurram Chohan struck with the very first delivery of the match by trapping Brendon Taylor in front. Umpire Bruce Oxenford raised his finger but Taylor went for the referral. However, he was unsuccessful. Three overs later, Charles Coventry too followed his opening partner.
Taibu and Ervine changed the script for Zimbabwe with sensible and aggressive batting. The Canadian bowlers, too, did not help their cause as they bowled short and full to be punished. Taibu, who reached to his 50 off 45 deliveries (8x4), survived when the referral system came to his rescue. The replays showed he inner-edged a delivery from former Tamil Nadu leg-spinner Balaji Rao after umpire Asad Rauf had declared him leg-before the wicket.