BULAWAYO (Zimbabwe): Dave Houghton believes he will get his second stint as Zimbabwe coach off to a perfect start by qualifying for the 2022 Twenty20 World Cup in Australia.
Zimbabwe are hosting from Monday to Sunday in southern city Bulawayo an eight-team tournament, with the finalists securing the final two World Cup places.
Qualifying begins with Zimbabwe playing Singapore and Jersey facing the United States in Group A at the Queens Sports Club.
Later on Monday the Netherlands meet Papua New Guinea and Hong Kong take on Uganda in Group B at the Bulawayo Athletic Club.
Group winners and runners-up progress to the semi-finals, and the penultimate-stage winners join 14 other qualifiers in Australia during October.
Former star Zimbabwe batsman Houghton replaced Indian Lalchand Rajput last month after a disastrous white-ball series against Afghanistan in Harare.
Zimbabwe suffered 3-0 losses in both one-day international and T20 series, triggering an immediate change of coaches with Rajput becoming technical director.
Among those who will assist Houghton is South African Lance Klusener, the former Afghanistan coach.
"We are a full blown Test nation and should beat our group opponents," said Houghton, who has fond memories of Bulawayo having scored a Zimbabwe Test record 266 against Sri Lanka there 28 years ago.
"My expectation, and that of the team, is to win this tournament and return to the World Cup after a six-year absence.
"Zimbabwe have struggled lately and the problem has been largely mental. Some players have underperformed because they feared making mistakes.
"Their skills have been wrapped up for a couple of years and, hopefully, we are going to release them. I want to see positive, exciting
cricket from our batsmen.
"We have focused a lot on batting since arriving in Bulawayo last week and having six full days of practice at Queens.
"I have stressed that there can be no holding back in Twenty20 cricket. We must be looking for boundaries in every over."
Zimbabwe have been boosted by the return of Sean Williams, Wellington Masakadza and Richard Ngarava after they missed the Afghanistan tour.
Middle-order batsman Williams was attending to personal matters while spinner Masakadza and pace bowler Ngarava were injured.
The other Group A sides -- Singapore, Jersey and the United States -- share the same ambition of reaching the World Cup for the first time.
Singapore will start as slight favourites to accompany Zimbabwe to the semi-finals as they are ranked 20th, one place above Jersey and six ahead of the United States.
Jersey coach Neil MacRae is thrilled that the island in the English channel are in contention for a trip to Australia.
"To go to a qualifying tournament and take on professional sides chosen from much bigger populations than ours is a huge opportunity for us," he said.
The USA squad includes former South Africa fast bowler 'Rusty' Theron and much is expected of teenage spinner Vatsal Vaghela, who impressed in a drawn series with Ireland.
Netherlands (18) are the highest ranked Group B contenders followed by Papua New Guinea (19), Hong Kong (24) and Uganda (25).
The Dutch are hoping to qualify a fifth time and will look to opener Steph Myburgh for runs while the pace attack includes English county cricket trio Brandon Glover, Fred Klasssen and Paul van Meekeren.
Papua New Guinea skipper Assad Vala says he is anticipating plenty of runs from veteran Tony Ura, who hit 10 sixes in a recent win over Malaysia, and young Hila Vare.
Defending champions Australia, Afghanistan, Bangladesh, England, India, Ireland, Namibia, New Zealand, Pakistan, Scotland, South Africa, Sri Lanka, UAE and the West Indies have already secured places.
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