Zimbabwe coach backs Proteas for WTC glory

The South African, who was appointed as the head coach of The Chevrons in June last year, will lead his team in a one-off four-day match against the Proteas starting today at the Arundel Castle Cricket Ground.

The Proteas are using this game as a final warm-up before facing the Aussies. Sammons says the two teams will go into that match on an equal footing.

“I think South Africa have a great chance of taking that World Test Championship final. Two evenly matched teams. It’s going to be a really good game and ultimately it will be decided by the batting unit that can fare best against two quality bowling attacks”, he predicted.

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The former Proteas batting consultant is also quite excited to be facing his native nation over the next few days. 

This will also serve as good preparation for the official test series that the neighbours will play at the end of this month in Bulawayo.

“The next four days against South Africa offer our team an amazing opportunity to prepare for what promises to be an exciting and challenging winter, with two tests against the same team and another two against New Zealand. 

“So the guys are really looking forward to the challenge and obviously the learnings that will come from it.

“It is good for this group and for Zimbabwean cricket in general that there’s so much test cricket available for them this year and obviously towards the end of last year. It’s where your fundamentals are tested, and as a young group of players, it’s where you’re going to take the greatest amount of learnings”, concluded Sammons.

Zimbabwe played a one-off test match against England almost two weeks ago, and were ruthlessly beaten by an innings and 45 runs. 

The coach admitted that the occasion got the better of his team, and says that there was a lot of anxiety among the players.