Ireland v Zimbabwe 1st Match

This was the first of the two one-day matches between the teams paled at the Clontarf ground in Dublin where the venerable Clive Lloyd and his team suffered from exposure during the 1999 World Cup. Despite the usual evil weather forecast, the morning of the match began dry, with occasional flashes of sunshine; the weather became increasingly bleak as the day progressed, but at least the match went the distance.

Zimbabwe won the toss and decided to bat, while the weather conditions were relatively stable, on a slow pitch allowing considerable seam movement. Irish opening bowler Owen Butler took 12 balls to complete the first over of the match, beginning with four successive wides, Neil Johnson (0) was bowled shouldering arms to a ball that moved sharply, but Craig Wishart (35) and Murray Goodwin (13) stabilised the innings. Wishart has joined the team after sporting his talents notably for Zimbabwe `A' in Sri Lanka, after being unlucky to miss selection for the main England tour party.

The greatest encouragement for Zimbabwe was probably the return to form of Alistair Campbell (52) and Grant Flower (64*) batting down the order. Campbell took quite a while to hit the ball off the square, but once that was achieved he scarcely looked back, Flower got off the mark with a six over midwicket, and it to be hoped that both batsmen have now turned the corner, Dirk Viljoen batted briskly for his unbeaten 30 before the innings closed.

228 was quite a stiff target in the circumstances, but with Australian Mark Waugh in the opposition nothing could be taken for granted. However Zimbabwe took an early grip on the innings and never relinquished it. The early Irish batsmen struggled to get the score moving, and even Waugh found it heavy going. At the halfway stage the score was only 67 for three, with the required rate almost 61 per over.

Waugh finally began to open up against Paul Strang, who has also joined the touring team in preparation for the on-day series and otherwise bowled economically. He formed a useful partnership with the aggressive Irish captain Angus Dunlop, who got off the mark by hitting Viljoen for a huge six over long on. But, when Grant Flower bowled Waugh for 38, the required rate had risen to more than eight an over, when Dunlop holed out at deep square leg for 35, making Ireland 146 for six, it was as good as over. Paul Mooney reduced the margin of victory with an enterprising 25 not out.