ZIM v NZ, 1st Test, Day 1 Review:  Neil Wagner leads Zimbabwe rout

Zimbabwe were rocked by Neil Wagner’s career-best innings performance of 6/41 as New Zealand bundled out the hosts for just 164 in the first innings of the 1st test at the Queens Sports Club, Bulawayo. The hosts suffered a two collapses –one in the morning session and the second after the lunch.

After losing opener Brian Chari to Tim Southee off the second ball of the match, Chamu Chibhabha and Hamilton Masakadza began cautiously taking the innings forward before they lost Chibhabha, Masakadza and Sean Williams in successive overs. Later, Zimbabwe lost four wickets when at the score of 72 and were reduced to 72/8. Fortunately, Donald Tiripano (49) and debutant Prince Masvaure (42) saved the hosts from a getting wrapped up for a pitiful total and took their team to a rather functional total.

Wagner, the wrecker-in-chief, rattled the opposition completely. His first pocketed Chibhabha and Williams off back to back overs in the morning session and continued his rampage by snapping Raza, Chakabva and opposition skipper Cremer in the 33rd over to completely derail the Zimbabweans.

Cremer’s wicket put him on a hat-trick and helped him complete his 3rd five-wicket haul of his career. He used the bouncer strategy pretty well in his entire spell which included an uninterrupted 13 overs spell. He was able to extract some good deal of place to make the Zimbabweans feel uneasy in the middle.

However, all did not end very quickly as the host took a sigh of relief after Tiripano and Masvaure clung on and forged  face-saving 85 runs stand for the 9th wicket. Both showed great temperament and added valuable runs to the scoreboard and somewhat frustrated the visitors. The pair was eventually broken by Tim Southee who got better of the Chakabva trapping him leg before. The innings soon ended after Wagner added another wicket to his tally in the form of the last man Chinoya. Tiripano remained unbeaten for his career-best score of 49.

They waited 20 months to play a Test match. The last time they played a Test was against Bangladesh in their own turf at the end of 2014. Moreover, they have not hosted a Test in almost two years. There was excitement before the start of the game. More evidently on the face of head coach Makaya Ntini. He said in the pre-match build-up that the Test-deprived players were hungry. But, sadly, the hunger was nowhere to be seen.

Brief Scores: