After going through a torrid time in World Cricket, Zimbabwe are ready to challenge the might of the mightiest at the 20-20 World Cup. Just four months ago the historic team lost to both Namibia and Afghanistan and all hopes for a World cup were lost. But here they are, just four years later, playing in the biggest tournament of T20I cricket.
Brad Evans, the Zimbabwe player has seen both sides of the coin and has been an integral part of the failure as well as the success of the team. In a chat with ESPNcricinfo, Evans had talked about expectations and resolutions.
“As a Zimbabwe side, we are starting almost from rock bottom,” he tells ESPNcricinfo. “When I joined, We lost to Namibia in a five-match T20 series. That’s rock bottom.” The 25-year-old bowler said that the changing room is vastly different to the team from four months ago.
Our changing room is happier now- Brad Evans
“Forget the cricket. The changing room between the two series that I played is such a different place. It’s jovial, guys are making jokes. It’s just a happier place,” Evans said. “The only thing that Dave has come in and done is said, ‘Guys, I don’t care if you get out, but I want you to play your shots’. So you’ll see someone play a terrible shot and you’ll think, ‘Oh, my god, what do you think the coach is going to say to him?’
“But Dave will actually just ask him about his thought process and say, ‘Maybe try this next time; but I like the way you batted today’. That gives that same guy the freedom to go out next time and still try and express himself. He doesn’t hammer guys for getting things wrong because at the end of the day, we’re all human, ” said the Zimbabwe bowler. Evans is also hopeful of their team’s tactics and believes that they could defeat anyone on their day.
“If you have 11 guys being aggressive, the chances are two or three of them are going to come off on any given day,” he says. “And the day that five or six guys come off on a day, we’re going to beat anyone in the world”
