Kevin Curran’s team of youngsters once again failed to produce positive results as they fell to the South African Senior National Cricket Team, the Proteas, by 5 wickets on the 22nd of August. The match was played at Queens Sports Club.

The match in Bulawayo was the first of the 3 match one day international.

The young team’s captain Prosper Utseya won the toss and chose to bat first. The team showed composure in its bating and managed to reach an impressive score of 206 all out but not even half centuries from Elton Chigumbura and Gary Brent were not enough for Zimbabwe to win the first of the three Croco Motors Ten Sports One day International.

The Zimbabweans could have contained the Proteas but they revealed that they were lacking much in their fielding techniques. Some players in the team showed lack of fitness on the field with players like Hamilton Masakadza doing schoolboy blunders and dropping crucial wickets. The team’s hope for victory were further ruined by the superior bating skill of A de Velliers who managed to score an impressive 62 runs before he was run out by Williams.

Despite this a few of the members of the squad were quite impressive on the field. Our very own Gary Brent managed to score 59 not out and he managed to be the man of the match. Players like Prosper Utseya and Chris Mpofu showed remarkable improvement in their bowling while Tatenda Taibu showed maturity in his wicket keeping as he took out the crucial wicket of G Bodi who was at 51 runs although it was not enough to stop the Proteas who sealed the game on the 46th over.

The last two matches of the series were played at Harare Sports Club on the 25 and 26th of August 2007.