Fast bowlers Kyle Jarvis and Brian Vitori took five wickets each on their debuts as Zimbabwe beat Bangladesh by 130 runs yesterday for a first Test victory in seven years in their comeback match.
Bangladesh were 244 all out in their second innings soon after lunch on the fifth day at the Harare Sports Club, giving Zimbabwe a successful return to the five-day game after a six-year absence.
New captain Brendan Taylor had scores of 71 and 105 not out — his first Test century — to lay the foundation for a surprise victory for the African team, who were expected to struggle on their return to the format after such a long absence.
Photo: AFP
“I wasn’t thinking about the hundred too much, I hit a couple of boundaries around the 70s and then I started to think I could get it,” the 25-year-old Taylor said. “We needed as much time as we wanted to get these guys out.”
With Bangladesh starting the last day on 112-3, chasing a target of 375, Zimbabwe’s fast bowlers were rampant as they removed five batsmen in the morning session.
Jarvis then bowled Shafiul Islam first ball after lunch and wrapped up the match with the wicket of Robiul Islam, who was out leg before wicket in the third over of the second session to spark the Zimbabwe celebrations. All 11 Zimbabwe players came together in a team huddle on the pitch to mark the moment.
“It was a great honor and a privilege, and I couldn’t have been happier to lead a great bunch of guys and work with the coaching staff we’ve got,” said Taylor, who was named man of the match in his first game as captain. “That made my job a lot easier and all the hard work the guys put in, I was very confident coming into this game.”
Zimbabwe last won a Test when they beat Bangladesh at the same ground in February 2004, but a player-board fallout in 2005 forced them to voluntarily withdraw from Tests amid a deteriorating political and economic situation in the troubled nation.
Left-arm seamer Vitori had match figures of 5-122 and Jarvis 5-128 on their Test debuts as Zimbabwe’s seamers took 18 of the 20 Bangladesh wickets.
Chris Mpofu and former captain Elton Chigumbura shared eight wickets and Bangladesh’s batsmen struggled in the battle of the two lowest-ranked Test countries, falling to 287 all out in reply to Zimbabwe’s first innings 370 and then 244 after the hosts had declared their second innings on 291-5.
“I thought in both innings we didn’t bat well,” Bangladesh skipper Shakib Al Hasan said. “The wicket was a good one to bat on. We are disappointed with our batting. We thought if we batted two sessions properly [today] and we keep wickets in hand that would give us a chance, but we kept on losing wickets and that cost us the game.”
Taiwanese world No. 1 women’s doubles star Hsieh Su-wei on Saturday overcame a first-set loss to win her opening match at the Madrid Open. Top seeds Hsieh and partner Elise Mertens of Belgium, with whom she last month won her fourth Indian Wells women’s doubles title, bounced back from a rocky first set to beat Asia Muhammad of the US and Aldila Sutjiadi of Indonesia 2-6, 6-4, 10-2. Hsieh and Mertens were next to face Heather Watson of the UK and Xu Yifan of China in the round of 16. Thirty-eight-year-old Hsieh last month reclaimed her world No. 1 spot after her Indian
EYES ON THE PRIZE: Armed with three solid men’s singles shuttlers and doubles Olympic champions, Taiwan aim to make their first Thomas Cup semi-final, Chou Tien-chen said Taiwanese badminton star Tai Tzu-ying yesterday quickly dispatched Malaysia’s Goh Jin Wei in straight sets, while her male counterpart Chou Tien-chen beat Germany’s Kai Schaefer, as Taiwan’s women’s and men’s teams won their Group B opening rounds of the TotalEnergies BWF Thomas and Uber Cup Finals in Chengdu, China. World No. 5 Tai beat Goh 21-19, 22-20 in a speedy 33 minutes, her fourth straight victory over the world No. 24 shuttler since they first faced each other in the quarter-finals of the 2018 Malaysia Open, where Tai went on to win the women’s singles title. Malaysia followed up Tai’s opening victory
Chen Yi-tung (陳奕通) secured a historic Olympic berth on Sunday by winning the senior men’s foil event at the 2024 Asia Oceania Zonal Olympic Fencing Qualifiers in United Arab Emirates. Chen defeated Samuel Elijah of Singapore 15-4 in the final in Dubai to secure the only wild card in the event, making him the first male Olympian fencer from Taiwan in 36 years and only the sixth Taiwanese fencer to ever qualify for the quadrennial event. The last appearance by a Taiwanese male fencer at the Olympics was in 1988, when Wang San-tsai (王三財) and Cheng Ming-hsiang (鄭明祥) competed in Seoul. The
A soccer jersey carrying a national map including disputed Western Sahara has become a hot commodity in Morocco after a diplomatic dispute with Algeria. Retailers said RS Berkane jerseys have been flying off the shelves after a Confederation of African Football (CAF) Cup match against Algerian club USM Alger was canceled last month over the jerseys. “We are overwhelmed by the influx of messages and requests,” said Brahim Rabii, representative of the official RS Berkane jersey distributor. Algeria broke off diplomatic relations with Morocco in 2021, partly over the issue of Western Sahara. The former Spanish colony is largely controlled by Morocco, but claimed