Allan Donald and Shaun Pollock smiled at the Harare Sports Club
pitch, and the pitch smiled back at them. They were quite
compatible. The only wish now of the South African pace pair was
for their captain to win the toss so they could bowl on it when
it was at its most co-operative - and Lady Luck smiled on them
all.
This is a major complaint of Zimbabwe players. "Other countries
prepare pitches to give their players home advantage, so why
can't we?" they understandably cry. The Harare Sports Club
pitch, with quite a bit of grass left on it, favoured the South
African pace attack far more than it did Zimbabwe's comparatively
inexperienced seamers. Our batsmen, so lacking in practice in
the longer game recently, needed a good sound batting pitch to
regain their confidence. Instead they were doomed to struggle
all the way against the two most successful pace bowlers in the
world during the past two years.
The way Zimbabwe have been playing recently, they would have lost
this match heavily whatever happened, whatever pitch they were
playing on. This is not to denigrate the team; if they were able
to play with the same spirit and fire that they had shown in the
World Cup match against the same opposition in Chelmsford who
knows what could have happened? At their best they can take on
any team in the world with confidence. Without that confidence,
they have had a disastrous time this season. Things were looking
better in the Bloemfontein Test, and had the umpires always been
able to make the right decisions they would not have lost by as
much as an innings. The improvement would probably have
continued in Harare. It was like kicking a man when he's down to
expect the team to play on the Harare pitch as it was then.
Curator Charles Wallace has come under a lot of criticism this
season for his pitches, especially the one-day pitch against
Australia, on which two matches were played. Again the excessive
amount of early life played into the hands of the Australian pace
attack - because, needless to say, Zimbabwe lost the toss on both
those occasions. Mr Wallace prides himself on producing pitches
with pace and life, and when he gets it right it is a beauty, as
it was for the Test against Australia, and that against India
last year. But if there are any problems in preparation, or he
leans a little too far in that direction, Zimbabwe are in serious
trouble. As former national captain David Lewis said during the
match, a pitch on which the captain winning the toss is eager to
bowl is not good enough for Test cricket.
On the day before the South African Test, Dave Houghton and Andy
Flower were looking with concern at the amount of grass left on
the pitch. Mr Wallace admitted it would not be as good as the
one against Australia, and he dared not take off more grass for
fear of it crumbling. Things clearly had not gone quite
according to plan in the preparation, and it must be admitted
that he has a very difficult task at present, with the worst
still to come. No Test ground apart from Harare Sports Club has
ever hosted four Test matches in a season before, let alone four
in the space of two months. And that excludes five one-day
internationals to be played on the ground.
Zimbabwe are still unable to have much say in when touring teams
visit the country; we are still in a position of having to be
grateful they come at all. Unbalanced programmes are likely to
remain a fact of life, unless we can one day produce one of the
most brilliant and attractive teams in the world - and even then
it takes years to build a reputation. It is at times like this
that we may wish there were other centres in Zimbabwe able to
hold Test matches, or that Harare had a second Test ground on
which to play, as do London and Colombo. If the Harare Sports
Club pitch cannot handle all the international matches yet to
come, then the Zimbabwe Cricket Union will have some hard
thinking to do in future.
Once they had been inevitably put in to bat, Zimbabwe inevitably
struggled. They certainly should never have been bowled out for
102, their lowest ever Test match total, but the South African
bowling was brilliant and the Zimbabweans just did not have the
form or confidence to handle the attack. Even the weather
conspired against Zimbabwe. Rain washed out most of the first
day, meaning that the home side had to go in again early on the
second morning -- and half an hour earlier at that, to make up
for lost time -- and face the usual early life in the pitch all
over again. Only Neil Johnson reached 20, and even he did not
look in good form. Nobody managed to come to grips with the
bowling and conditions, a sign once again of low confidence as
many have shown their ability to handle such situations in the
past.
One-day batting techniques were also very much in evidence. Too
many of the experienced players, who have coped with the fastest
bowlers in the world in the past, were failing to move
sufficiently across their stumps to get behind the line,
resulting in many slip catches. It is noticeable that the least
experienced of the batsmen, Trevor Gripper, got into line better
than most. Significantly, he has yet to play in a one-day
international! The others have played up to 23 one-day matches
in the seven months before the arrival of the Australians,
including county warm-up matches and those against the Australian
Cricket Academy. They are still very much in one-day mode and
some serious reprogramming is needed -- as they themselves
recognise.
The angled bat was also much in evidence, partly as a result of
failure to get across and behind the line of the ball.
Slow-motion replays showed one batsman after another dismissed
caught off an angled bat, or by means of variation bowled or
playing on through the gate left by an angled bat away from the
body. Even our most technically correct batsmen have got into
bad habits that will take time to eliminate -- and that time does
not exist with the Sri Lankan series upon us without a break.
The South African batsmen, like the Australians, showed clearly
how to bat in a Test match. Our bowling may not be fearsome,
especially in the absence of Heath Streak and Adam Huckle, but
they did generally bowl line and length, concentrating just
outside the off stump. It was just a pity it took them a while
to settle down to length especially, as Jacques Kallis in
particular was waiting for the short ball and rarely failed to
pull it for four. Once the bowlers learned to pitch it up and
bowl straight to him, they slowed his rate of scoring
considerably; but, fine Test batsman that he is, he simply bided
his time and kept concentrating and accumulating.
Mark Boucher was another who was superb at punishing the short
ball, and he too showed fine temperament and a wise game plan in
fighting his way through patches where he became almost becalmed
by the accurate bowling and brilliant fielding. The arrival of
Klusener at the crease seemed to inspire him after a particularly
dogged spell, and he almost matched his powerful partner stroke
for stroke during a brief gaudy partnership of 44 in eight overs.
Only after lunch did the Zimbabweans begin to wilt. The bowlers
lost their accuracy and there were some uncharacteristic fielding
lapses as Boucher and Pollock took full advantage. Andy Flower
took advantage of the drinks break to pull his team together, but
they made heavy work of the tail end of the South African
innings. Against Australia, Steve Waugh and Damien Fleming added
114 for the eighth wicket; now we had an eighth-wicket stand of
148, a new South African record. Pollock eventually fell, but
the last pair were causing annoyance when rain halted play again
for the day.
It is debatable whether Zimbabwe would have preferred to bat for
an hour before the close that night or go in with the pitch
showing its usual early-morning life the next day. Neither was
recommended, but they got the latter. Then Grant Flower,
continuing to suffer the bad luck that seems to dog batsmen
struggling for form, received as his second delivery a virtually
unplayable ball from Donald.
The traditional 'ball from hell' is said to be the first that
Shane Warne bowled in a Test match in England, in 1993. It
pitched outside Mike Gatting's leg stump and whipped right across
him to hit his off stump. Donald's delivery to Flower cannot
have been any better. It started from the bowler's arm, heading
at least two feet outside off stump. It swung in, pitched
perhaps a foot outside off stump, and then ripped in to knock out
his leg stump. All at twice the speed of Warne's celebrated
delivery. It was an appalling blow from which the Zimbabwean
innings never recovered.
All came out looking to play positively rather than attempt the
self-defeating exercise of blocking their way through, although
Trevor Gripper has had some success at that in the past. So
dominant were the South Africans, though, that they could never
succeed for long. Alistair Campbell looked in fine form, relaxed
and confident, but he was cut down on 25 by an umpiring error,
the ball coming off his pad to be snapped up close on the off
side with the umpire believing it had hit the bat in between.
Gavin Rennie made Zimbabwe's top score of the match, 34, by
positive methods. Usually known for some rather dogged displays
as opener, he has been put down the order to accommodate Gripper.
Number seven is never an easy spot for a specialist batsmen, but
Rennie has had to yield place to the senior men who hold on to
the preferential spots in the middle order. He was particularly
severe on Adams, hitting him hard and high several times and
providing good encouragement for the despairing afternoon crowd
until he tried it once too often and holed out on the boundary.
Then the match was soon over.
It was Zimbabwe's worst result since gaining Test status and one
of their worst ever, although some will remember the loss by an
innings and 292 runs to Peter May's powerful 1956/57 touring team
on the same ground. But there is only one way to go now after
touching rock-bottom and that is up. It just remains to be seen
how soon the 'up' will occur.