'I feel like we should be all out here apologising to our fans' - Zimbabwe head coach Dave Houghton after loss against Namibia

ICC Mens T20 World Cup Africa Region Qualifier 2023 matches are being played at the  United Cricket Club Ground, Windhoek in Namibia. Zimbabwe played their first match of the event against Nambia where they were beaten quite comprehensively by seven wickets.

Batting first, Zimbabwe could score just 132 runs in their allocated 20 overs as their batters were unable to play attacking shots against the precise bowling of Namibia. Craig Ervine was the highest scorer of the inning with 36 runs to his name.

In pursuit, Namibia chased the target quite comfortably in just 14.4 overs and won the game by seven wickets. After the game, Zimbabwe head coach Dave Houghton criticised his players heavily and said that this was "embarrassingly bad" and "one of the worst games" during his tenure with Zimbabwean Cricket.

"When you ask what went wrong, as far as I am concerned, we got everything wrong. We were awful today, embarrassingly bad. It's probably one of the worst games that I have ever been associated with in a Zimbabwean jersey.

"Why it happens, I have absolutely no idea. We train hard, we train with specifics. The guys worked really hard, they had enough energy coming into this game, but we batted poorly and followed that up by bowling poorly and our fielding was average," Houghton said as quoted by ESPN Cricinfo.

He emphasised that Zimbabwe are not playing well and it seems that there are demons in the wicket when their batters are at the crease but the moment opposition batters come in to bat, it looks like a brilliant batting surface.

"When you are not playing particularly well and when you have lost a little bit of confidence as we have, we see demons in the wicket when we bat, but when we bowl there are no demons in the wicket," Houghton said. "So, I looked at that wicket and it looks a good batting strip and I would have thought we would score 170-180 comfortably.

"We gave a lot of wickets away, we were not batting positively, we are batting recklessly at the moment. I thought it was really a good batting wicket and they proved it when they chased," he added.

However, in spite of the poor start in the tournament, Houghton said that he is pretty sure that Zimbabwe will make a comeback and do well in the qualifiers.

"It's a terrible start to this tournament, but we do know we've got to win the next five games and still qualify," Houghton said. "That's important for us, but not my best day and certainly not my happiest day. In fact, I feel like we should be all out here apologising to our fans.

"We can't sort of rest on our laurels and think we are a bigger side than the rest. We've got to turn up and play proper cricket," he added.