Townsville (Australia), Sep 4 (Representative) Zimbabwe beat Australia by three wickets in Townsville in the third ODI to finish the series on a high and notch up their first win against Australia in Australia. On their first tour to Australia for a bilateral series since 2003, Zimbabwe gave a good account of themselves with the ball after winning the toss and putting Australia in to bat on Saturday, 3 September. Zimbabwe has had a good month in international cricket, beating Bangladesh in the ODI and T20I series at home before coming close to shocking India in Harare in the final ODI. Dave Houghton, the head coach who has overseen Zimbabwe’s commendable performances, said that they were “over the moon” after the memorable win. “We’re over the moon,” Houghton said. “We don’t get to beat the big sides that often and to beatthem in their country is a huge plus for us and our cricket at the moment. “The former Zimbabwean captain hoped the result would bring more big tours for them.”I hope it goes a lot way towards providing that [more matches],” Houghton said.
“There’s a bit of good cricket coming up for us over the next six months, but it would be nice to get involved in toursto the bigger countries.” The more wins we can get on tours like this, the more our chances are that we might get some bigger opponents on a regular basis.”Despite the win, he felt there was still a significant gap in quality between the sides. “I still think the gulf is huge. I’ll be honest, if we’d lost the toss today I think we’d have seen a game similar to the second game when you are looking at it from a completely different angle. We’d struggle to beat your state sides on a good day.”We are growing and hopefully we grow quite quickly with the amount of cricket we are beginning to get and the fact we are getting a few results like this…it’s really good in enforcing what we are trying to do with the team, the tactics and the skills they have. “Because there’s nothing worse than working really hard at something and getting absolutely no reward. It’s nice to get these little reward top-ups to show the guys what they are doing is right.” Australia still managed to win the series 2-1 and go on to host New Zealand next week for three ODIs in Cairns.