Cape Town, Jan 5: Skipper Sikandar Raza believes that the upcoming T20 World Cup is a perfect chance for struggling Zimbabwe to regain its presence in the cricketing map with a clutch of strong performances.
The African side has been clubbed in Group B alongside former champions Australia and Sri Lanka, and hopefuls Ireland and Oman in the ICC showpiece, beginning on February 7.
“The World Cup is really crucial in every cricketer’s life. I always think for Zimbabwe to gain more respect in world cricket, World Cups play a huge part,” said Raza in an interaction facilitated by SA20 after the match between Paarl Royals against MI Cape Town here on Sunday.
Raza showed his readiness for the big-ticket event, taking four wickets (4/13) to power Royals to a comfortable seven-wicket victory over MI Cape Town.
“So, we have the mindset to go there and try and do really well so that we can come back with our heads held high, and so that our people back home can have their heads high as well.“Results are not in our hands and we don’t worry about it too much. As long as we’re playing a good brand of cricket and doing exactly what the game asks us to do, we’ll have the result,” he added.
Zimbabwe will play their group matches in Sri Lanka, where pitches are expected to favour spinners, and Raza was confident that his side has the required skill set in that department.“If the wickets turned out to be that (spin-friendly), then I think we have enough harmony in ourselves to have more hours of spin if we need,” he said. (PTI)
