‘Time to change things’

Zimbabwe captain Tatenda Taibu aims to break a losing streak of 12 limited overs internationals tomorrow when he leads his young side against Sri Lanka in a must-win triangular series game. “It’s time now for us to break the ice and win a game,” Taibu told reporters here. Pakistan has already qualified for the final after beating Zimbabwe twice and thrashing Sri Lanka by eight wickets in Karachi on Wednesday.

Zimbabwe has lost all its one-day internationals since leading white players revolted against the Zimbabwe Cricket Union over its selection policy in April 2004. However, under Taibu, Zimbabwe gave Pakistan a scare in the first two games last week. It narrowly lost the second game at Peshawar by three wickets after posting a target of 252-4.

“The boys really performed well in certain areas in which we were struggling before, so we’ve taken lots of positives from the game in Peshawar and hopefully put them into the game tomorrow,” Taibu said.

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Sri Lanka’s middle-order batsmen failed to capitalise on a solid century partnership between captain Marvan Atapattu and Sanath Jayasuriya in Karachi, as Pakistan restricted it to 232-9 off its 50 overs.

“We did not play well. We made lots of mistakes and we want to rectify them tomorrow,” said Sri Lankan vice-captain Mahela Jayawardene.