Coach says Zimbabwe underdog in tri-series

Heath Streak, the Zimbabwe coach, has said his team is the underdog in the tri-series, which also involves hosts Bangladesh and Sri Lanka.

Zimbabwe are the lowest ranked team among the three in One Day International (ODI) cricket - they are placed tenth with 52 rating points, reports ESPNcricinfo.

Sri Lanka are placed eighth with 84 rating points while Bangladesh are placed seventh with 92 rating points.

Streak, however, took confidence from Zimbabwe's historic 3-2 series win in Sri Lanka in July last year.

Zimbabwe have not played an ODI since, and need to shake off the rust quickly.

"I think we still have a long way to go," Streak said. "We are the underdogs in this series.

But I still feel that we have got the quality of players we need to take Zimbabwe cricket forward.

We showed against Sri Lanka last year that we can compete against other countries outside our home territory.

It was very pleasing but we have a long way to go as a team.

"[The Sri Lanka ODI series win] will give us the belief and the confidence to compete.

We haven't played a lot of one-day cricket of late. We have played more Tests while SL have played 13 ODIs since we last played them.

We haven't played any. We have prepared well and hopefully we can get into the series as quickly as possible and then get some good results early on.