Chawaguta sets his aim too low

Zimbabwe coach Walter Chawaguta remains upbeat, despite mixed results in recent series in Canada and Kenya. But his comments this week leave a feeling that he is lowering expectations too far.

In Toronto, Zimbabwe came close to being overturned by Canada, eventually tying the Twenty20 match and winning the subsequent bowl-out. In Nairobi, Zimbabwe slumped to their third loss against Kenya in five meetings, but it was the win against Ireland, one place above them in the ODI rankings, that Chawaguta was keen to talk about.

Ireland tied with Zimbabwe at the 2007 World Cup and as the Irish progressed to the Super Eights, Zimbabwe returned home in comparative disarray. There was also some bitterness at board level as Ireland are now coached by Phil Simmons, who used to be in charge of Zimbabwe before falling out with the executive.

"That performance had nothing to do with Simmons but Ireland themselves," Chawaguta told the government-controlled Herald newspaper. "There's been a lot of hype about Ireland wanting to be in the ODI top 10, they want to take our place and that's probably where they are at the moment.

"They've been putting a lot of work into their preparations, they've been playing a lot of cricket lately. We felt it was an opportunity to put them in their place and stake our claim to be in the top 10 where we belong although we are not there at the moment due to lack of games. That was the motivation behind the big win against Ireland and it was unfortunate that we didn't get to play them for the second time."

Critics of the state of Zimbabwe cricket were given ammunition by Chawaguta's comments that "we totally outclassed Canada [in the play-off match] and Ireland". Both teams are essentially amateur and receive a fraction of the ICC funding Zimbabwe continue to get. Five years ago, playing them would have been almost beneath Zimbabwe. Now they are considered tough contests.

But Chawaguta was in full flow. "It goes to show that if we do things properly and we get stuck in our roles and everyone does what they are supposed to do then we can beat any team, especially these small sides, we can put them in their places."

Zimbabwe now face a much tougher proposition in Sri Lanka. Despite home advantage, Zimbabwe are without another two of their better players who have jumped ship - Brendan Taylor and Sean Williams - and it is hard to see how their flimsy batting line-up will cope with Muttiah Muralitharan and Ajantha Mendis.

In the past two years, they have won three out of 26 ODIs, the wins coming against Ireland, Bangladesh and, most notably, West Indies. Their record against Sri Lanka is even worse, with eight losses on the trot, and you have to go back to the pre player-drain era in 2003 for the last time Zimbabwe won.

Chawaguta, who was a controversial appointment, will need to look to do more than beat sides like Canada to convince the cricket world that his team is close to halting their continuing decline. He could start instilling confidence by aiming his sights a little higher.