Zim Afro T10 2024: Sikandar Raza's heroics propel Bangla Tigers to T10 glory

The young Zimbabwean fast bowler Tinashe Muchawaya produced a bowling performance that would be remembered for quite a long as he snatched the win for the JorsquoBurg Bangla Tigers from the jaws of defeat against the Cape Town Samp Army The Tigers who were captained by Sikandar Raza were staring at defeat before Muchawaya turned it around in the final four deliveries to give the Tigers the Zim Afro T10 title at the Harare Sports ClubAsked to bat first the JorsquoBurg Bangla Tigersrsquo openers were out of the blocks at good pace Kusal Perera and Mohammad Shahzad took the attack to the Cape Town Samp Army bowlers and were finding the boundaries with relative easeThe two openers raced away to a halfcentury stand adding 59 in the less than four overs before the Sri Lankan departed for 33 from 11 deliveries when Qais Ahmed trapped him LBW The bighitting Shahzad who scored a matchwinning halfcentury in Qualifier 1 was still in the middle and now had Hazratullah Zazai who walked in at onedrop for company At the fiveover mark the Tigers were cruising along at 601Qais bowled a tight second over after that as the Tigers slowed down a tad bit before Shahzad and Zazai started to up the ante against Salman Irshad in the seventh over which produced 18 runs Amir Hotak then had Zazai caught at cow corner for 19 and that brought to the middle the crowd favourite and captain Sikandar Raza Three consecutive wides by Tawanda Maposa in the 9th over brought up the 100 for the Tigers and then a bit miscommunication between the batters resulted in Shahzad being runout for 44 After that Raza smashed a couple of huge maximums to get himself going as the Tigers got 21 runs from the 9th overIn the final over looking to accelerate against Nicholson Gordon Karim Janat departed for 4 as he was caught out at long off and George Linde 0 followed suit off the very next ball Tashinga Musekiwa smashed his first ball over the ropes for a six after that as the Tigers finished with 1295 in 10 oversAlso Read Colin Munro predicts big future for T10 despite being incredibly toughIn response the inform Brian Bennett picked off 12 runs of Adam Milnersquos first over while Luke Wood took the second over and that gave the Samp Army 9 more runs Dawid Malan and Bennett were coming into the final on the back of some good form and were looking assured in the middle Malan was up against Tinashe Muchawaya next and he decided to go through the gears which proved costly for the Tigers as three maximums and a couple of boundaries made it a 27run over for the Samp ArmyMalan and Bennett continued to control the momentum of the innings and at the halfway stage the Samp Army for 660 and were cruising along The righthanded Bennett then took the attack to Raza in the next over as the Samp Army hurtled along to 790 in 6 At this point to win the Samp Army needed 51 from the final 4 overs and they had all 10 wickets in handIn the next over the Tigers struck as Adam Milne first sent Bennettrsquos 36 stumps cartwheeling and then had Rohan Mustafa caught at extra cover for a duck The New Zealander kept things quiet for the rest of the over after which Karim Janat conceded 10 Malan was nearing his fifty at this point and the Samp Army needed 35 to win from the last couple of overs in what was turning out to be a closely contested gameMalan got to his fifty in the next over with a drive through point and then started to bring out his full range of shots In the final over the Samp Army needed 21 to win with And thatrsquos when Muchawaya took charge The youngster was smashed for a couple of sized off the first two deliveries of the over by Jack Taylor but he bounced back in fantastic fashion and tied up the batters to take the Tigers to a 5wicket winBrief scoresJorsquoBurg Bangla Tigers ndash 1295 M Shahzad ndash 44 K Perera ndash 33 N Gordon ndash 210 Amir Hotak ndash 114 won by 5 runs against Cape Town Samp Army ndash 1242 in 10 overs D Malan ndash 62 Brian Bennett ndash 36 Adam Milne ndash 218 K Janat ndash 021