We are looking at these matches to get exposure, says Zimbabwe coach

Ahmedabad, Oct 7 (UNI) Zimbabwe coach Kevin Curran today said his inexperienced young side was looking at the Champions Trophy to get more exposure in the lead up to next year's World Cup.

Speaking to newspersons at the pre-match conference before their first qualifying Champions Trophy match against West Indies at the Sradar Patel stadium, Motera here tomorrow, Curran said his side does not suffer from illusions.

''We know Sri Lanka and West Indies, who are also playing the qualifying round with Bangladesh as the fourth team, are teams which can even win the Trophy and we would require to beat atleast one of them to qualify for the next stage and therefore we are looking to get as much experience we can get and take the team forward step by step,'' Curran said.

He said their main aim would be to compete.''This would be possible only if we score 250 to 260 runs consistently. It is possible as we have shown our capability in the West Indies as well as against South Africa,'' Curran added.

Curran also tried to put the present team's performance in proper perspective when he said that this year they had played 20 games and won 8 matches which gave them a 40 per cent win record. ''If you check the performances of the Zimbabwe team in the past, you will see that they were winning only twenty per cent of their matches,'' he said.

On the team composition for tomorrow, Curran said they will look at the wicket one more time tomorrow before finalising their playing 11. He also said that the toss would not have a bearing on the game as the wicket is likely to stay the same for the full match. ''We practised under lights at 1930 hrs yesterday and though we were warned of dew, there was absolutely no dew at all and we expect it to remain the same tomorrow also.'' The 21-year-old captain Prosper Utseya said he was enjoying the role of captain and is learning from every match. He also said he had seen the West Indian team while growing up and recently they had toured the Carribean Islands also, therfore he knows what to expect from them and his team is fully geared up and prepared to take on the challenge, he said.

UNI GS PM PDS KN2023