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Zimbabwe in New Zealand 2011-12 - All related news thread

Sir john

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Zimbabwe hope to reclaim pride in Dunedin

Coach Alan Butcher says his Zimbabwe team are hugely embarrassed by their Napier capitulation and he had no inkling such a performance was imminent. Butcher, the former Surrey and Essex coach, had his side back in the nets yesterday after they folded for 51 and 143 to lose to New Zealand by an innings and 301 runs at McLean Park. And the one-time England international, who took over as Zimbabwe coach in March last year, wasn't mincing words. "They were embarrassed [in the dressing room] and they should have been. They all felt we let ourselves down badly and that we hadn't given a good account of ourselves," Butcher said. "Regardless of how the result had gone, it wasn't going to be easy for us to play a test away from home, having been out of test cricket for some time, but we hoped we would at least provide five days of competitive cricket. "We got nowhere near that." This was Zimbabwe's first overseas test since their readmission in August. They batted reasonably well in the warmup game in Gisborne, posting 330 against the New Zealand XI. But they slumped to new lows on Saturday, with 51 their lowest test total, beating the previous record against South Africa by three runs. "It was disappointing. It bore no relation to how we've been practising and how we've played in recent times," Butcher said. "Not only then [saturday] but I thought we didn't bowl particularly well on the first day. "All around I think we were below par and New Zealand played well and took full advantage. "With the bat we played at a lot of wide balls and we played across straight balls. We didn't do things that we've been doing pretty well. "It's difficult to know why that should happen collectively, twice, with the exception of Regis [Chakabva] who played very well and showed you could make runs. "They did bowl some bad balls that we could score from." The team discussed the performance yesterday, then had a three-hour net session. They were to do the same again today before flying to Dunedin tomorrow for the first of three one-day games on Friday. Butcher said the bowling of paceman Kyle Jarvis and the batting of Chakabva (63 off 119 balls) were the positives from Napier. Big-hitting all-rounder Elton Chigumbura would come into the one-day game reckoning after being 12th man in Napier. The change from whites to their red one-day strip could at least spark an improvement. They won their previous one-day game against New Zealand in a high-scoring contest in Bulawayo. "That will be in their minds; to know we can compete in a much better fashion than we did in the test match," Butcher said. "We've got to. If we keep losing like that, then we'll find ourselves back where we were five or six years ago."
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