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The match against Zimbabwe looms as a vital one despite the BLACKCAPS opening the ICC World Twenty20 with a victory over last year’s finalists, Sri Lanka.
It’s a fixture Daniel Vettori describes as “must win”.
“We don’t have the chance to slacken off, we have to go in there and win the game and we want to win it comprehensively and not worry about run rates.
“Zimbabwe have played pretty well this tournament, they didn’t get a chance today with the rain but if you look at their warm up games they were fantastic so we know we are in for a fight,” he added.
The perennial underdogs beat Australia and Pakistan before the tournament and then narrowly lost to Sri Lanka by a Duckworth/Lewis calculated 14 runs in their first Group B match.
Vettori is not taking them lightly saying, “There is a little bit of familiarity but we know they are a relatively new team for a lot of our guys but they have got some performers that have done reasonably well so I don’t think we can under estimate them but we have still got to go in thinking that we can win.”
The BLACKCAPS are expected to go into the match with the same starting line up.
“We have named the same 12 (v Sri Lanka), the only change could be possibly Kyle Mills coming in, but I would suggest that we probably go in with the same 11.”
When asked about the injury and team selections Vettori said, “We obviously struggled last time and we have struggled in a lot of series due to injury and missed some key players. At the moment we have got 15 people to select from and that makes selection tough and I think that is what every captain and coach wants, going into a major tournament.”
Next match:
4/05/2010 BLACKCAPS vs Zimbabwe - Group B match
Providence Stadium, Guyana
+1day NZ, 1:30am
