At last – it seems that the Zimbabwean fighting spirit is back again
John Ward08-Mar-2002At last – it seems that the Zimbabwean fighting spirit is back again! In Test cricket, anything other than an innings defeat in a Test match in India would have been a fine achievement – and we did far better than that, causing much tension in the Indian camp before they got home by four wickets.Then came the first one-day international, when the team exceeded all realistic expectations with a glorious one-wicket victory in one of the greatest of one-day matches (if that isn’t an oxymoron!). All seemed lost when Doug Marillier came to the wicket at number ten. But, having narrowly failed to win the match with 15 off an over from Glenn McGrath a year ago, he made no mistake this time. I did urge him before he left to practise his famous shot for India (the flick over the shoulder to fine leg), and he obviously did so!Perhaps we have now found in Marillier another Iain Butchart, a man who can come in to bat in the tightest of situations and take command, as `Butchie’ did so often during the eighties, although his opponents were limited almost entirely to the B sides or youth teams of Test-playing countries in those days.But it was a magnificent team achievement, and Marillier could not have done it without the support of others – notably Grant Flower, whose bowling stemmed the Indian onslaught, and with the bat Andy Flower, Alistair Campbell and Stuart Carlisle in particular, while even last man Gary Brent played his part to perfection, after some more umpiring guesswork cost the wicket of Tatenda Taibu, which might have been crucial. And it was a magnificent performance in the field.Consider what we are up against. If all the Zimbabwean players were suddenly eligible to play for India, how many would be considered for the team? Only Andy Flower and Heath Streak – nobody else would get a look in. And what are we up against? True world-class batsmen like Tendulkar, Dravid and Ganguly, with Das and Sehwag not far behind and even Laxman unsure of a place; fine pace bowlers in Srinath and the rapidly improving Khan, with Agarkar unable to hold down a place; and the brilliant spin attack of Kumble and Harbhajan in conditions that suit them. Zimbabwe haven’t a chance against such might in Indian conditions – unless they just play out of their skins, which is exactly what they did.Visions of winning the five-match one-day series are almost certainly more than that – India just have too much firepower to allow Zimbabwe to win another two matches, barring almost unbelievable happenings. Knowing Zimbabwe cricket, we are likely to get at least one or two serious thrashings, when the Indian talent clicks on and we just do not have the resources to stop them. But all we ask of our team out there is that they play with real spirit and make the home side fight all the way.We would also ask for better umpiring, but that is probably a vain hope. The dismissal of Trevor Gripper in the Second Test match illustrates what seems to happen so often even with Test match umpires. He was given out caught at slip. The umpire guessed the ball had hit his bat or glove, and then guessed that slip had taken a clean catch. The television camera proved that he guessed wrong in both instances.The number of wrong decisions against batsmen suggests strongly that many umpires base much of their decision-making on sheer guesswork. The laws of cricket state that any benefit of the doubt must go in favour of the batsman, as he is the one who does not get another chance, but the number of wrong decisions suffered by batsmen indicates that many umpires disregard this and are prepared to give a batsman out as a result of guesswork. This is just not good enough, and if the best umpires in the world cannot do better than this, then the ICC is doing the game a serious disservice by refusing further technological aids.*****Questions have been asked as to why left-arm spinner Raymond Price, whom many in India described as Zimbabwe’s find of the Test series, was omitted from the one-day tournament.Dave Houghton says that the reason is simply that the selectors are determined not to compromise Price’s skills as a genuine attacking left-arm spinner; they do not want him pushing the ball through low and flat in one-day cricket, which would be a travesty of his talent. He said that they tried him in one-day cricket about two years ago, and Price has taken until now to recover.That seems to me an eminently wise and sensible reason. Perhaps the same cannot be said, though, for the continued exclusion of Guy Whittall from the team. A superb double-century and eight wickets in the Logan Cup last weekend against the strong Mashonaland side shows that he is ready and eager for international cricket again, and his all-round skills would certainly have been an asset in India.*****The appointment of Vince Hogg as the incoming managing director of the Zimbabwe Cricket Union is being welcomed with great satisfaction by the cricket community. Hogg, at the age of 49, is seen as a man without political bias who knows both cricket and the business world, the ideal man for the position.At last, it seems, Hogg has had a fair deal from the `selectors’, which was by no means the case during his first-class career for the country, which lasted from 1971/72 to 1983/84. He was a superb fast-medium bowler who had he been born 20 years later would have formed a high-quality new-ball partnership with Heath Streak. No other seam bowler to represent Zimbabwe in Test cricket has been as good as Vince was at his best.The peak of his career was perhaps in 1981/82, where he took 14 wickets at an average of 18.21 against the Young West Indies, a much stronger team than their Test team is today. He won the highest commendation from the tourists, yet only two years later he had been dumped again by the selectors. In his career he took 123 wickets at 26.39 each, and toured England in 1982 and, for the World Cup, in 1983.He was no batsman, as a career average of 5.32 testifies (only five times reaching double figures in 54 innings – highest 30 against the might of Griqualand West), but he does have two notable batting feats to his credit. Until it was beaten by Geoff Allott for New Zealand against South Africa in 1998/99, he held the record for the longest duck in first-class cricket, 87 minutes for Rhodesia B against Natal B in Pietermaritzburg in 1979/80. And his batting also won a match for Rhodesia, an epic 2 not out in 1975/76 that enabled his team to beat Transvaal (now Gauteng) in Johannesburg!On the business side he was a financial director at UDC for some years before switching to the estate agent business, and now he has returned to Zimbabwe cricket. It was an excellent choice that will restore much confidence in the ZCU.*****With the Logan Cup in full swing, this is now the best time for us to compile biographies of new players, especially those in the CFX Academy, and to update old biographies. We did a number of interviews last weekend, but pressure of time means that most will have to be held over until next week. In the meantime, we do include in this issue a biography of Glen Barrett, who made such a startling debut in Mutare but missed the match against Mashonaland A through injury, and an updated biography of former Academy and current Mashonaland A player Andre Neethling.