Zimbabwe name 20-man squad for one-off Test against Bangladesh

Zimbabwe have announced a 20-member squad for their one-off home Test against Bangladesh to start on July 7 at the Queens Sports Club, Bulawayo. The hosts have included four uncapped players- Takudzwanashe Kaitano, Dion Myers, Chivanga Tanaka, and Joylord Gumbie- in their squad.

Among the four, the 25-year-old Gumbie is the most experienced, having played 44 first-class matches with 1,714 and two centuries to his name. Kaitano has played 21 first-class games while Tanaka and Myers have taken part in five first-class games each.

Sean Williams has been named as the skipper with the squad having experienced heads in the form of Craig Ervine, Brendan Taylor, Donald Tiripano, and Tendai Chatara. Fast bowler Chatara has earned a recall in the Test team after playing his previous match in the format back in November 2020.

Having scored 9611 runs from 227 matches, Taylor is 389 runs short of becoming the third Zimbabwean after Andy Flower and Grant Flower with over 10,000 international runs. Sikandar Raza, the all-rounder, missed out on the back-to-back Test series as he is recovering from a bone marrow infection.

Blessing Muzarabani is expected to lead the bowling attack. The speedster has been impressive for the national team across formats in the last nine months or so. He also bowled effectively for the Multan Sultans, who became the 2021 Pakistan Super League (PSL) champions.

As far as their home campaign against the Tigers is concerned, the only Test will be followed by three ODIs and as many T20Is, starting July 16 at the Harare Sports Club. The two teams last met in a bilateral Test, ODI, and T20I series in Bangladesh in February-March 2020.

Here’s Zimbabwe’s squad:

Regis Chakabva, Tendai Chatara, Tendai Chisoro, Tanaka Chivanga, Craig Ervine, Luke Jongwe, Roy Kaia, Kevin Kasuza, Timycen Maruma, Wellington Masakadza, Blessing Muzarabani, Richard Ngarava, Victor Nyauchi, Milton Shumba, Brendan Taylor, Donald Tiripano, Sean Williams (C), Joylord Gumbie, Takudzwanashe Kaitano, Dion Myers.

Back in April and May, Zimbabwe played a two-match Test series against Pakistan that they lost 0-2. Both the matches ended with the home team enduring an innings defeat. Chakabva was their leading run-scorer with 146 runs at an average of 48.67 whereas Muzarabani was the top wicket-taker for the hosts with seven scalps.