Yes we can!

AS the Zimbabwe national cricket team prepares to go to the World Cup Twenty20 tournament in Bangladesh next month, the problems that the team has been facing have been well documented with observers giving the team no chance of getting past the qualifying stage.
However, last week, the Zimbabwe Cricket (ZC) settled its debt with the players after the International Cricket Council bailed it out with a US$3 million loan, ending a two-month long strike over salaries and wages dating back to August 2013.The development paved way for the two-day domestic Twenty20 competition which finally kicked off this week after players had insisted they would not take to the field before they get their dues.
ZC used the tournament to choose the final squad of 15 national team players for the World cup Twenty20 tournament.

If there is one thing that has come out of this strike, it is the fact that the players have become a united force that if properly harnessed and guided towards the forthcoming competition, history could be rewritten again.
It is often said that a united force can overcome anything insurmountable.

Recently, Cricinfo.com carried a pictorial tribute of the best moments of Zimbabwe’s 30 year history in international cricket.
It was a tribute of 17 record setting and breaking matches that have become the signature of the playing side of Zimbabwe Cricket.

A quarter of these memorable wins were registered at cricket’s biggest show case, the World Cup Cricket competitions.
The win over the Australians in 2007, at the inaugural Twenty 20 World Cup in South Africa, ranks as the best performance by a Zimbabwean cricket team I have ever seen. Apart from the weather, the Zimbabweans were in complete control of the game from start to finish.

For me, the team showed character and what it is capable of achieving when the players play and work for each other.
The 3rd ODI that clinched the series win against Bangladesh in 2011, though not as fluent as the Cape Town performance, comes in second.

Tatenda Taibu, cometh the hour cometh the man, what a performance, a consummate professional cricketer who built his innings with meticulous purpose. What a marvel it was to watch him go about his trade. He is definitely a man who puts his money where his mouth is.
The 142 run partnership between Taibu and Hamilton Masakadza ensured that Zimbabwe posted a defendable score and secured Zimbabwe’s first series win in six years.

It was then left to the second of the three former captains in the team to ensure that the Taibu/Masakadza partnership was not in vain.
Prosper Utseya is not one to throw in the towel. He is a fighter who battles with tooth and nail for what he believes in.  

As I watched from the embankment, the intensity of Utseya’s performance was absorbing. In the four years that he was captain, I had never seen him so animated, so motivated and so focused. He was defiantly in one of his fighting moods. It was as if he was trying to prove a point. If that was the case, he could not have asked for a better time or place to do so. 
He alone was the reason for four dismissals. Without his performance, Zimbabwe would not have won that match.

Having prized open the batting, he increased the pressure on the batmen. Had the fielding been on the same level, Utseya could have got his first six wicket hull at an economical run rate.
The style in which Zimbabwe closed out the game was reminiscent of the Twenty20 match in Cape- team work at its best. After calling the team for a pep talk, Taylor seemed to allow the experienced bowlers and Taibu to take over the situation.

New field positions were effected, safe hands were placed out in the deep, bowlers changed ends and wickets started falling at a quicker rate.
If ever there was a practical execution of roving leadership this was it.  

Zimbabwean players need to think and work unwaveringly as a team. They need to be more selfless and cohesive and always believe in themselves.
Together as one they can overcome all odds and go on to greater heights of achievement and success in Bangladesh.