Former Test captain Tatenda Taibu says the ICC Intercontinental Cup will be a positive influence on the development of the game in Zimbabwe after he led a strong team to a draw with an Afghanistan team that keeps on making waves.

Taibu, who scored a century in each innings of the match, is determined to make it back into the national side after a period on the sidelines.

“The competition is definitely good for our players as they get to play against different teams in different conditions,” said Taibu. “It is good for the up-and-coming players and it will put pressure on the players in the national team and create some competition for places,” he said.

“I am always saying to myself, whether I am playing club cricket, first-class cricket or cricket for my country, that I should try and enjoy it, so it was a good thing for me to get away from the real pressure where everybody is looking at you… It was a good track for batting. They were one man down, as one of their bowlers got injured very early on in the game and we took advantage of that.”

Although it ended in a draw, Nowroz Mangal’s team will take nine points compared to Zimbabwe XI’s three from the match because it was ahead after the first innings and, were it not for the contribution of Tatenda Taibu, the Africans would have been in serious trouble.

The wicketkeeper-batsman was impressed with the performance of Afghanistan, a team he had not played against previously.

“They were a lot better than we all expected. They batted very well in defence, but they could probably work on putting away the bad ball, as they missed out on some of the bad balls that we bowled.

“I hope to be back in the national team by the time we play Bangladesh and try and help get revenge for the defeats at home.”

Afghanistan coach Kabir Khan hit back at critics of his team who said it was fortunate to be playing in this competition and was not ready for the challenge.

“Some people thought we may have been lucky to finish in the top 10 at the ICC Cricket World Cup Qualifier and that it was a fluke, but I think that we are going to be one of the top teams in this tournament,” said Kabir.

“People said that they thought we could only play one-day cricket and that we would be trying to hit every ball, but we have proved them wrong as well. We have answered a lot of critics and showed that we rightly qualified for this,” he said.

“We are really pleased at how we did in our opening first-class game. I never expected that. Our warm-up matches in Kabul helped us a lot and we played very professionally here. It looked like we had been playing the game for a long time.”

Kabir reserved some particular praise for his opening batsman Noor Ali, who was the other player in the match – along with Taibu – to score a century in each innings.

“It was a great effort from Noor Ali and he was very professional in the way he batted. I hope the way he is playing he will score a lot of runs at this level.”