Right place, wrong time

A second successive abandoned day at Bulawayo's Queens Sports Club has thrown the future of the match into doubt.

While there was virtually no rain today, so much has fallen over the past week that the south-eastern corner of the ground, an area perhaps 50 metres square, has been left waterlogged, and certainly too slippery for any fielder to run with safety.

The reality is that if there is another heavy downpour any time before Monday evening, the match will almost certainly be called off. If the weather does hold, it should be possible to get under way sometime tomorrow.

Scheduling a major tour between mid-December and mid-March is a risky undertaking in Zimbabwe, and prior to the World Cup there were three successive wet seasons where it was virtually impossible for players at any level to get on to the field in the Harare region - the supposedly arid Bulawayo escaped more lightly. It was indeed fortunate that the World Cup year was a dry one.

It would be ironic, given its reputation for dryness, if a Bulawayo Test were abandoned without a ball being bowled. Zimbabwe first played Test cricket there, at the inadequate Bulawayo Athletic Club ground, against New Zealand in November 1992-93, and it seemed safe enough, as there had been very little rain in the city for ten months prior to the event. However, a combination of cricket and the arrival of Dickie Bird to umpire the match seemed to attract a sudden spell of heavy rains and that match was badly affected by the weather.

The joke in Zimbabwe in those years was that if you travelled to Bulawayo, you had to take your own water with you. But even in Bulawayo, cricket in February is a gamble that should not be undertaken if avoidable.