Zimbabwe can only hope for bad day from Australia

Even its role in one of the biggest upsets in World Cup history is providing little inspiration for Zimbabwe ahead of a daunting World Cup opener against defending champion Australia on Monday.

Zimbabwe pulled off a shock victory over the Australians at the 1983 World Cup, but nearly 30 years later it's a distant memory.

The African team's English coach conceded even its best-possible performance probably won't be enough in the Group A match at Sardar Patel Stadium.

"If we play our best cricket and Australia don't we may have a chance," Alan Butcher said on Sunday. "But let's be honest, if both sides play their best cricket it's very likely that we will lose.

"All we've done is tried to prepare as well as we can ... if we play as well as we can for six matches at this World Cup, we can't do any more than that."

The Zimbabwe team aimed just to perform well enough to "push" the four-time champion, captain Elton Chigumbura said. Australia is unbeaten in its last 29 World Cup matches and Chigumbura wasn't born when Zimbabwe pulled of its greatest World Cup win.

"Those (1983) players, they are gone now," the skipper said. "At the moment, it's up to us. If we play our best cricket, I'm sure we will be able to push Australia. At the end of the day, I'll be happy if we play our best."

Butcher said the underdog would hope for an off-day from Australia, or one of the other big teams in its group, to boost its unlikely chances of a place in the quarterfinals.

Along with Australia, Zimbabwe also plays Sri Lanka, Pakistan and New Zealand- as well as fellow outsiders Canada and Kenya.

"If, on the way, one or two of the bigger sides have a bad day and slip up, then hopefully we might take advantage of that," the coach said, putting his faith for Monday's match in the belief that Australia's incredible streak at World Cups can't last forever.

"The longer a winning run is, the closer it must be to coming to an end I reckon," he said, smiling.

But Australia is more powerful than the Zimbabweans in every area of play.

Asked after Zimbabwe's final training session ahead of the game which of the Australia players worried him, Butcher replied: "There's 11 of them."