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Stephen Mangongo

Jonathan John Sports Reporter
ZIMBABWE cricket coach Steve Mangongo was maintaining a cool head after guiding his team to a grand win over world number one ranked side Australia at Harare Sports Club yesterday. It was Zimbabwe’s first win in an ODI game over the Aussies in 31 years. If South Africa beat Australia at Harare Sports Club tomorrow, then Zimbabwe could gatecrash into the final of the triangular with a win over the Proteas in their last match on Thursday.

“The boys played well and won the game, I don’t feel vindicated because I had nothing to prove, I was just doing my job,” said Mangongo.
“Being ranked tenth (in the world) means it is a long process to have a stable team because that is why we are tenth and we have to narrow the gap every day and until we get the right players, we’ll continue to search.

“We are still a long way to finding players who can consistently perform but well done to the team, the boys played better cricket than Australia today.”
Mangongo said his men always have to put in extra effort to compete against the likes of Australia and South Africa and, when a victory comes as was the case yesterday, they should embrace it and move on.

“The boys are up against the best in the world (number one and three) and that means being number ten we are always under the pump and this time around we have spoken about staying at the crease, taking responsibility and batting for long periods of time and that is what Prosper(Utseya) and Elton(Chigumbura) did,” said Mangongo.

Zimbabwe captain Elton Chigumbura was overwhelmed by the victory as he powered his side to victory with an impressive unbeaten 55-run partnership with Utseya with 12 balls to spare.

“I’m very happy with the victory, I think the guys contributed right from the first batsman to the time when Prosper (Utseya) came in as the little they put in contributed to winning the game but credit should also be given to our bowlers who restricted the Australians to 209, a positive that gave us another chance as in the South Africa game we were in the same situation but failed to capitalise,” said Chigumbura.

The crowd at Harare Sports Club burst into a frenzy after Utseya fired the winning runs, a huge six, that ended the contest.
“It was a proud moment for everyone and Zimbabwe cricket as it has been more than 30 years since we beat Australia and I hope we can learn from this experience and enjoy more success,” said Chigumbura.