Simmons: 'Two-tier Tests won't help us'

Phil Simmons, Zimbabwe's coach, has said that plans to restrict the amount of Test cricket played by Zimbabwe and Bangladesh would harm the game in the two countries.

Last week, the ICC announced that it was considering reviewing its long-term fixture list as the pressure of almost non-stop cricket were became increasingly clear for all to see. One option - and probably the least financially painful to the major Test-playing countries and one which would avoid too many one-sided contests - would be to limit the number of series played against Zimbabwe and Bangladesh.

"The ability to produce big innings is the main problem," Simmons told reporters on Zimbabwe's arrival in Johannesburg at the start of their tour of South Africa. "There's talent there, but the batsmen need to understand how to score big hundreds. That only comes from playing over and over again, which is why two tiers would be a backward step."

Tatenda Taibu, Zimbabwe's captain, told reporters that he remained positive despite the "disappointing" results in Bangladesh. "If you look at the team over the last five months, we have been improving, and that improvement excites me," he said. "Our number one objective is to keep improving on this tour, but obviously we want to start winning games. We do play to win."

Asked whether he thought South Africa would rest key players against Zimbabwe, Taibu replied that he was not at all interested what was happening in the South African camp. "From our point of view we are only concerned about playing South Africa," he said. "We've got a lot of aspects to sort out in our changing-room, so we are not worrying about what's happening in theirs."