Batting was a problem for our side: Chigumbura

Ahmedabad, Feb 21 (PTI) After being outplayed bydefending champions Australia in their opening World Cup matchat the Sardar Patel Stadium here today, Zimbabwe skipper EltonChigumbura said the team needed to improve its batting.

Chigumbura said thay lost too many wickets, too soon inthe match, which Australia won by 91 runs.

"Batting was a problem for our side as we lost manywickets early. It would have been better to keep wickets inhand," Chigumbura said during the post-match press conference.

The skipper, however, was quick to praise his bowlers andsaid that bowling and fielding were the two positives from thematch, and they would like to carry that forward.

Coach Allan Butcher said that he too was pleased with thebowling and fielding. "But we needed to bat batter," he added.

He accepted that his team was outplayed by the defendingchampions, but added that this was just the first game and hewould expect his team to get better.

Butcher said that the spinners did an excellent job andhad the Australians thinking.

Asked why the team chose to go for powerplay at the endof the innings, Butcher said that it would have not made anydifference to the game as Zimbabwe were down and did not havethe firepower to take advantage of the powerplay.