da bet sport： England cricket captain Nasser Hussain believes that its time England put a stop to the losing streak that has seen them lose 11 consecutive one-day matches since last year
da pixbet： Larry Moyo05-Oct-2001England cricket captain Nasser Hussain believes that its time England put a stop to the losing streak that has seen them lose 11 consecutive one-day matches since last year.The first game of the five-match series against Zimbabwe is at Harare Sports Club tomorrow and England were taking it easy after a comfortable 138-run win over Zimbabwe A in a warm-up match in the capital on Monday.The squad for the first match will be announced later Tuesday evening but Hussain did not expect major changes to the team that played on Monday."There can’t be many changes obviously from Monday. That’s why we played that [particular] team. We had a look at the wicket today and we will have a management meeting later to select the team."Also there are no injury worries. We were a bit stiff this morning after yesterday’s match. We worked very hard as you have seen so we had a very easy day today ready for tomorrow."Asked whether they were thinking of giving every member of the touring squad a game in the series, Hussain said, "We will review that later. Obviously it’s important to start by winning. We might have as many as four or five lads on debut tomorrow. So we are not taking anything for granted."We are obviously here to win every game. We are also here to give people a chance to express themselves and show people what they can do. That balance will have to come later but tomorrow’s game is the key to how we start off."We are playing against a team that has just lost a few games, and they will be looking to come back against us, the easier side. How we go about our business tomorrow is very important."Hussain said he was happy with England’s performance in the warm-up game on Monday."It was very encouraging all the way through. I was even quite happy with the first 15 [overs]. That’s the way we set ourselves to play and I would rather we play like that, play as a team, play to the plan rather than play as individuals and not have a plan."I think in the whole of Monday we only had a bad 14-minute spell in the first game with the altitude and different wickets. We are trying to create a new culture of fitness, attitude, fielding and talking about the game and understanding more about it," Hussain said. "We’ve had a lot of discussions but talk is cheap and we have to put it into practice, which we haven’t done for a while in one-day cricket."Hussain said that he is not expecting to experiment with the batting order. "It’s been the most important thing we have discussed because we don’t want to experiment too much. We want to get people batting in positions they are going to stay for [a long time]."That’s why Graham Thorpe is our best player at the moment. He has batted at 4, 5, 6 all his career both for Surrey and England. He knows how to do that and that’s where our problem is because we don’t have enough people who regularly bat in those positions that they know how to do."Desperate to get over the losing streak, Hussain added that the winter tours should mark a new era."We have tried to draw a line underneath that losing streak. A lot of guys in the team wouldn’t have played in most of those 11 matches. So with four boys on debut probably, you are going to have people who haven’t understood winning or losing."So how we are in these five matches is important because we are trying to create something and, as I have said, winning will be the most important thing. This is just talk, but we are trying to draw a line under last summer and that poor performance and now start something new for the next 16 to 18 months and beyond that."The World Cup comes after that and the only basic thing that will keep the plan going is winning. Everything else is irrelevant."He said that England had been playing well up to their last win in Karachi last October."We were actually playing some good cricket. We won the triangular series in England, we reached the final in a one-day tournament in South Africa, we came here and won 3-0, we chased 300 and won in Karachi, so we were playing decent one-day cricket."But obviously since then the wheels have come off. We have played some good sides and realized that we were are not up to the mark with the other sides we have competed against. With those two particular sides in summer, Pakistan and Australia, we were found wanting."Zimbabwe go into the match at the back of a 3-0 series whitewash against South Africa, but Hussain expects them to be difficult to beat."It will be difficult here and the cricket will be turgid. The wickets are slow and we’ll have to adapt better than the first time when we were out here in 1996."We adapted a bit better the last time we were here and won 3-0 but that was with a very experienced squad. This is an inexperienced squad which may have four boys on debut and they will have to adapt to very difficult conditions tomorrow."
