Zimbabwe, Canada in a battle of spin

NAGPUR, Feb 26 (AFP): Zimbabwe captain Elton Chigumbura will be expecting a repeat performance from his disciplined spinners to boost their chances of posting a win in the World Cup against Canada Monday. Zimbabwe impressed with their spin bowling in their first game when defending champions Australia made 262-6, but were let down by their batsmen as they were dismissed for 171 to suffer a 91-run defeat in Ahmedabad. They were found wanting against Australia's quality pace attack, led by Mitchell Johnson who finished with 4-19. He was brilliantly backed by fast bowlers Shaun Tait and Brett Lee, who shared three wickets. Zimbabwe will again rely on spinners to keep the pressure on Canada after an eye-catching show by Ray Price, Prosper Utseya and Graeme Cremer against a strong Australian batting line-up. Left-arm spinner Price, off-spinner Utseya and leg-spinner Cremer did not allow the Australian batsmen to dominate, conceding 127 runs in a combined tally of 30 overs. "I think it's going to be a game of spinners. They have got a couple of good spinners bowling early overs and if we can get through those overs and score at a consistent rate we can do well," Canada skipper Ashish Bagai said. "It's the same with our bowling. If we can get our spinners to fire on that day, hopefully it will work for us. We have a diverse bowling attack and we bowl within ourselves. There is no express pace."