Zimbabwe have sprung one of the major surprises of the African Cup of Nations so far, with a 2-0 win over World Cup debutantes Ghana, and in doing so, knocking Ratomir Dujkovic’s Ghana ‘Black Stars’ out of the tournament.

Ghana only scored two goals throughout the tournament, and were obviously missing the talents of Michael Essien, the Chelsea midfielder that was so instrumental in the Black Stars’ World Cup qualification, who didn’t travel to the tournament through injury, and for this match they were also missing the services of captain Stephen Appiah who was only half-fit for the match, Roma defender Sammy Kuffour and Matthew Amoah who were all injured, and were all notable in their absence.

That, tied in with the suspension of Laryea Kingston, this left the normally strong Ghanaian midfield virtually non-existent for most of the match.

Any one of the four teams in Group D could have gone through the quarter-finals, such was the tightness of “The Group of Death”, and the results from both matches constantly changing the order of qualification, with a draw enough for Ghana to progress.

Zimbabwe started off the game showing their intent to at least give Ghana a hard time, and trying their best to earn their first win of the competition, and they seemed to be the team in control throughout the match, with Portsmouth FC’s Benjani Mwaruwari and Veteran captain Peter Ndlovu causing constant problems for the Ghana defence.

Ghana's first serious attack on the Zimbabwe goal was miscued by Stephen Appiah, who was in the right place to latch on to a bouncing ball in the area, but his shot flew high of goal, as he opted for a first-time strike rather than controlling the ball.

Zimbabwe had the chance to take the lead in the 37th minute with Ghana keeper Sammy Adjei pulling an acrobatic save to keep out Zvenyika Makonese's powerfully-struck free-kick which was bound for the top corner of the net.

Peter Ndlovu whipped in a brilliant cross moments later but Benjani wasted another golden opportunity to put Zimbabwe ahead.

The game went into half-time 0-0, with the Black Stars still progressing at that point if the scores stayed the same in both matches.

In the second half, with the Black Stars defence still under pressure, Zimbabwe’s ‘Warriors’ deservedly went 1-0 ahead with a 59th minute goal by midfielder Cephas Chimedza to put the Warriors in front.

Ghana defender Issah Ahmed, was lucky to stay on the pitch after handling the ball in the 69th minute, after a tussle with Benjani, which went unpunished by the referee for the handball, but as the referee let play go on Benjani immediately punished Ghana as a whole when the Portsmouth forward pounced on to the loose ball, and from the edge of the area, took on the keeper, and calmly slotted the ball past Sammy Adjei and into the net to put Zimbabwe 2-0 up.

There was major drama at the end of the match, with the situation at that time being that with Nigeria drawing against Senegal, if Zimbabwe could win 3-0, then they would stay in the tournament.

In injury time, the Warriors thought they had done it when Joel Luhpala netted, but the goal was rightly ruled off-side.

Zimbabwe then threw everything they could at the Ghanaians, hoping for that crucial third goal, but Ghana blew away their hopes when Ghana eventually found the back of the net through a spectacular strike from Baba Adamu, but with only seconds to go before the referee's final whistle, it was nothing more than a consolation goal for Ghana.

This was not enough for either team to stay in the tournament, with both Nigeria and Senegal going through to the last eight.

Black Stars coach Ratomir Dujkovic will feel let down with this early exit, but was realistic in his summary of the match, saying; "We were under pressure, we could have qualified with victory or a draw, but Zimbabwe did not have that pressure and played well.”

"We did not play well, but this has nothing to do with the World Cup as it is still a long way away,” said Dujkovic.

“We were missing several key players after all.”

This makes Ghana the third World Cup-bound team to fail to go past the group stages at the African Cup of Nations, with Angola and Togo also both falling at the first hurdle.