Sharjah: Zimbabwe v Pakistan - Assesment

For Zimbabwe in the first post-Andy Flower era, the big match is Kenya. Against Pakistan and Sri Lanka, in their familiar conditions, victory is hardly to be expected, although there is not much point in going into a match without that dream. But, if it adds to the pressure, as it often does to Zimbabwe players, then at least concentrate on enjoying the experience and learning all you can.

So it was hardly surprising that Zimbabwe lost comfortably to Pakistan, even a Pakistan team shorn of many of the great players of the past. Saeed Anwar, Inzamam, Wasim, Waqar, Saqlain, Shoaib Akhtar, Shahid Afridi - all were missing and only Mohammad Sami of the main bowlers had toured Zimbabwe four months earlier. But Pakistan is so rich in talent it was inevitable that young, enthusiastic colts would take their place.

If Pakistan lost more than half their World Cup team, so did Zimbabwe - figuratively, at least. For Andy Flower was half the team. Campbell, Olonga, Whittall too were all gone. There is plenty of talent still available, but not quite up to the Pakistani standard, and it is still raw.

It didn't help Zimbabwe's cause to lose the toss and therefore be required to bat under lights. The batsmen are not used to it. The pitch itself was not as good a batting surface as is usual at Sharjah, and the commentators insisted, early on at least, that the ball did not come on to the bat very well. That did not stop it from coming off the bat very well late in the Pakistani innings. Otherwise it was not really a pitch that anybody would want to wrap up and take around with them. It had no grass so the seamers got little from it, and it did not take much spin either.

After a couple of rusty overs, Heath Streak settled down and bowled very well. His opening partner Andy Blignaut was more erratic. But Pakistan did not bat particularly well, and with two wickets down for 38 Zimbabwe looked suitably excited. But then Blignaut bowled six wides in an over and gave the batsmen valuable relief at a crucial time.

For a long time the match was evenly balanced, with Pakistan losing wickets now and then and threatening to lose more. Their running between wickets was poor, even though Inzamam was not even in the touring party. There were two run-outs, and one several occasions a batsman only escaped because a fielder missed with a direct shy at the stumps. This is one area of the game where Zimbabwe need to brush up.

Streak took himself off after taking the third wicket in his eighth over. There was a case for bowling himself out, but when a side has only one reliable seamer there is no easy answer as to what to do with him. Later on Streak took the gamble later in the innings to come back before the end to bowl his final two. If he had broken through then, the story might have been very different. But he didn't, and that failed gamble was to have serious consequences.

The immediate consequence, though, was positive, as Sean Ervine with a slower delivery had the prolific Yousuf Youhana brilliantly caught by keeper Tatenda Taibu. But the other bowlers took longer to acclimatize than Streak, even spinners Grant Flower, playing in his 200th one-day international, and Doug Marillier, and they were not as economical as usual.

The turning point came courtesy of a captain's innings by Rashid Latif, the latest skipper to have his name pulled out of the hat by the Pakistani Board. He has done a stint as captain before, notably when Pakistan toured Zimbabwe in 1997/98. He was soon busily at work, keeping the score ticking over and encouraging Younis Khan at the other end. In the credits after the match, he seemed to have been forgotten, but it was his innings that began to turn the tide.

He was to fall as one of the run-outs, but he had done his job. Younis reached fifty, but the headlines belonged to Abdur Razzaq. Razzaq could almost certainly not have done his job without the foundation laid by Rashid, but he made sure the Pakistani total was beyond reasonable reach of Zimbabwe.

I shuddered when I saw Ervine coming on to bowl at the death. So often a spell from Ervine results in a haemorrhage of runs. Unfortunately the Zimbabwe think tank doesn't seem to realize that yet. So it proved this time, as Razzaq mauled him for 24 in an over. Ervine has great potential, yes, but an alternative definition of potential is `a hell of a lot of work to do'. He isn't there yet, and some think he has been concentrating too much on his batting to the detriment of his bowling. He has some way still to go as an international bowler, but unlike some he has the ability to take it. At the other end Douglas Hondo also travelled, but that was a little less predictable.

Without Andy Flower, Zimbabwe probably didn't believe they had a realistic hope of making the target, although on paper they did have a chance. Unfortunately cricket is played in the head rather than on paper. Craig Wishart fell early to a rather wild shot to debutant Umar Gul, caught at the wicket. He still has to overcome his reputation as a murderer of second-class bowling, like Namibia, but a rather weak performer against the best. His body needs to convince his head that he can do it - or somebody needs to.

Doug Marillier, opening the innings, reached his highest one-day score without even resorting once to his legendary shovel shot over the keeper's head. The crowd must have been disappointed. It was nearly cut short, though, by the most unfair law in cricket, that allows a non-striker doing his job properly by backing up to be run out freakishly when a drive from his partner bounces off the bowler's body and hits the stumps at the bowler's end, completely by chance. Am I the only person who hates this law that allows a batsman doing the right thing to be dismissed through sheer misfortune and no skill on the part of the fielding side? Fortunately the replay was not clear enough for him to be given out.

But wickets fell steadily. A question arose for the Zimbabwe think tank. You need eight an over to win and a wicket falls. Do you send in a batsman whose usual game is to work the ball around the field for ones and twos, or a batsman who has a fine record for devastating boundary hitting - bearing in mind that the batsman at the other end will be a worker of ones and twos? Zimbabwe's answer was the first, and so Tatenda Taibu went in ahead of Heath Streak. Was anybody surprised it failed? What goes on in the mind of players and coaches sometimes? Presumably they must have had some reason for keeping Streak back until number ten, but nobody else could think of one.

Small though the chance might have been, Streak was the man who might just have done it, or at least got us close. It was similar to the situation in India when Marillier came in to blast 56 off 24 balls and win the game - but he was already out without having raised a shovel in anger, although he did score 59 good runs. Admirable batsman as Taibu is, he is not a batsman who could have won the match in that position. Can anybody explain to me why that was not bad tactics?

Part of the problem with the run rate was that Ebrahim was too slow. He is just not a one-day batsman yet, but the selectors keep on including him, giving him security of tenure far beyond what players like Wishart or Gavin Rennie ever enjoyed. Many claim cynically that he only owes his place to the colour of his skin.

Whatever the story, it is not Ebrahim's fault. He is one of the nicest guys ever to set foot on a cricket field, without a nasty bone in his body, and he can do without this sort of pressure. Nobody needs hints that he is only in the team for reasons other than ability, especially when he seems unable to prove them wrong. Ebrahim will develop, but it seems he needs a break from the one-day game now.

On the whole, Zimbabwe seemed more positive than they did for most of the World Cup. It was in a way almost back to normal, though disappointing against weakened opposition. They compete superbly at certain times during the match, only to be decimated at others. They are not consistent enough over the long haul to look like winning in the end.

Still, we are in the process of team-building. We need patience, and we need to hope that we do not lose any more of the talent we desperately need.