Raza dubs Man-of-the-Series award the painful reminder of unfulfilled dreams

Zimbabwe's senior pro Sikandar Raza finished the World Cup qualifier on a personal high - 319 runs at 53.17 and 15 wickets at 17.6. For the first time since 1979, however, Zimbabwe failed to make it to the World Cup, and the Man-of-the Series award at the event left a sad after-taste for the top performer.

"Certainly, not happy at all. I think this [Man-of-the-Series] trophy will serve as a painful reminder of the dreams that we had and we couldn't get it done. This trophy will also serve as a reminder for the 15 million dreams that we crushed," Raza said on Sunday (March 25).

"When I started playing cricket, I thought it was to unite countries, players of different background coming together to play this beautiful sport. Unfortunately, you'll see that's not going to happen in next year's World Cup. It's certainly quite a tough pill to swallow."

Zimbabwe won all the ICC Trophy tournaments that enabled them to qualify for World Cups in 1983, 1987 and 1992, and since gaining Test status in July 1992, they have had automatic qualification into the mega event. The hosts were considered to be one of the strongest contenders and were expected to be in the top two along side Windies. However, a tied game and then a loss to Windies made their last Super Six match against the UAE a crucial contest. A slim loss by three runs left them hanging by the thread, before Afghanistan usurped them with a win over Ireland.

Raza shied away from looking back at his performances and rather indulged in praising the other associate teams that couldn't make it to the 10-team event. "This trophy will also serve as a reminder of the hard work that Peter Borren and his Dutch players, Kyle Coetzer and his Scottish players, Rohan Mustafa and his UAE players, and all the other countries that came and couldn't make it to the World Cup," he mentioned.

With ICC culling the number of ODI teams to 16, two teams languishing at the bottom of the points table at the end of the tournament - PNG and Hong Kong - didn't just bow out but also relinquished their ODI status.

However, Nepal's elevation as an ODI team, came through as delightful news to the Asian continent. "Yes there were some good things as well. Congratulations to Nepal and to have their ODI status for the first time but this trophy will also serve as a painful reminder that two of our brother countries lost their ODI status as well, and I wish them the very best of luck. Not much to say to be honest, just a whole lot of emotions. Just a painful reminder to be honest."