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| September 23, 2005 | Friday | Sha'aban 18, 1426 |
Zimbabwe coach blames umpiring for defeat
HARARE, Sept 22: Zimbabwe coach Kevin Curran claimed poor umpiring had played a large role in his team’s 10-wicket defeat at the hands of India in the second Test on Thursday. India won with two and a half days to spare after bowling Zimbabwe out for 161 and 223, to clinch a 2-0 series victory, their first outside the subcontinent since 1986.
Left-arm seamer Irfan Pathan claimed match figures of 12 for 126 for a series tally of 21 wickets, trapping eight of his victims leg-before.
Curran was in no mood to be complimentary to the Indians, however, lashing out at the umpiring instead.
“There’ve been poor lbw decisions and Heath Streak and the other bowlers don’t get the rub of the green. It’s not acceptable,” Curran said.
“Lesser countries seem to get poor decisions all the time. If our top players get given out from bad calls it doesn’t help our cause. If things had gone their way we would have had a different impact on the game,” he said.
Indian captain Saurav Ganguly was happy with his team’s performance, while acknowledging the weakness of the opposition.
“We played well even though the results were quite expected. I thought the seamers bowled particularly well. But we have a lot of cricket coming up against better opposition, so we need to wait and see whether there are any question marks against us,” Ganguly said.
Ganguly praised Pathan for his man-of-the-series performance.
“Irfan Pathan was outstanding. He loves the Kookaburra ball and he’s been getting swing early on. He had a great Test series.”
The Indian captain said Zimbabwe were missing key players, but there was hope for them at Test level.
“There are signs of improvement in Zimbabwe cricket, they just need players to stand up and come through.
“Zimbabwe went down and lost their sting, especially in the batting after players like Andy and Grant Flower left, and the bowling is good but is missing a good left-arm spinner like Ray Price,” Ganguly said.
Pathan was pleased with his share of a world record and said it had been the series of his life.
“It’s good to know about the record and I’m playing my best cricket. My bowling has come on so well recently and it has been a wonderful series for me,” he said.—Reuters
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