The Day Zimbabwe Beat Sri Lanka By An Innings

Zimbabwe have never beaten Sri Lanka in a Test match, although there are eleven players and one coach who will be prepared to swear that they should have done two years ago, in the infamous Colombo Test when, as video evidence confirms, a number of bad umpiring decisions enabled Sri Lanka to come back from the brink of defeat to win a match thy should have lost.

But the first time the two teams met was before Zimbabwe gained Test status, before they even played in the World Cup. Sri Lanka, newly elected to Test status themselves, toured Zimbabwe back in 1982/83 to meet a Zimbabwe team captained by the England coach of today, Duncan Fletcher.

The teams played two one-day matches and two unofficial Tests. The one-day series was drawn with one victory to each side, while Zimbabwe won the 'Test' series one-nil. After a drawn match on a beautiful batting pitch in Bulawayo, Zimbabwe overwhelmed the tourists by an innings and 40 runs in the Harare match.

Zimbabwe, only recently divorced from the South African Currie Cup, had a good team, most of whom were to play in the World Cup a few months later and enjoy a victory over Kim Hughes' Australians. But it is often forgotten that it was actually this Sri Lankan tour that provided Zimbabwe with their first victories over a Test team. Dave Houghton, Andy Pycroft and Iain Butchart had careers lasting long enough to play Test cricket ten years later, while John Traicos not only did that but had also played in South Africa's last three Tests before isolation more than twelve years earlier. Other players of undoubted Test class were Fletcher himself and Peter Rawson, while there were some very good players who might have succeeded at Test level in Jack Heron, Kevin Curran and Vince Hogg.

Sri Lanka, it must be said, were just adjusting to Test cricket, having played in only five Test matches before this tour, and had not yet had the chance to develop. Many of the players were actually less experienced in first-class cricket than Zimbabwe, who had had the benefit of the Currie Cup until 1980. Immediately before this tour a number of Sri Lankan players, including their former captain Bandula Warnapura, had been tempted away on a 'rebel' tour to South Africa, but according to Sri Lankan sources few of them would have been candidates for selection to Zimbabwe anyway.

The Sri Lankan team was captained by Duleep Mendis, also a fine batsman. Andy Pycroft, who had a wonderful run with the bat against them, actually found it difficult to remember this tour too clearly. He remembers opener Sidath Wettimuny as a good batsman who concentrated on occupying the crease and had to be winkled out, rather in the mould of Grant Flower, but he did not enjoy a successful tour - his forgotten brother Mithra was considerably more successful. Roy Dias and Mendis were the two top batsmen. Both were attacking players, Dias with a superb technique and Mendis a powerful hitter who would throw the bat at the ball and could change the course of a game. Arjuna Ranatunga at the age of 18 was in the side, but recorded a 'pair' in the Harare match and Andy cannot even remember him.

Ranjan Madugalle was another good batsman, but Andy's main memory of him is his getting hit on the helmet by a hit from Jack Heron while fielding at short leg and having to be carried off the field.

He remembers Sri Lanka's top bowler as the leg-spinner Somachandra de Silva, a very volatile player, the keeper Guy de Alwis, and Rumesh Ratnayake and Vinodhan John as useful pace bowlers. He feels that they were stronger in batting than in bowling. De Silva he remembers as being threatening when he was allowed to crowd the batsman with close fielders, but as soon as he was attacked he became quite ordinary. Andy found success in using his feet to him, and the bowler's volatile temperament greatly reduced his effectiveness in these circumstances.

On a fine Queens Sports Club pitch in Bulawayo Andy remembers a big partnership for the third wicket with Curran, 144 altogether, and he himself went on to record 128 after being dropped at slip early on. He was out for 81 in the second innings, caught on the fine-leg boundary by Ashantha de Mel flicking at a ball from John; he knew at the time that if he had recorded a second century he would have been the first locally born player (this excludes Mike Procter) to record that feat in a first-class match. He was most disappointed and felt it was an unlucky dismissal.

In Harare, Zimbabwe were given a good start by Houghton, who was also keeping wicket, and Heron, who shared an opening stand of 106. Both scored fifties, but the top scorer for, incredibly, the eighth successive Zimbabwean first-class innings was Pycroft with 96. He actually remembers little of it, not even the stroke that got him out (caught Mithra Wettimuny) after an eighth-wicket partnership of exactly 100 with Rawson. All he remembers is his disappointment at failing to score another century.

It was in this innings that de Silva lost his temper completely after having what looked like a good appeal for a bat-pad catch off Fletcher turned down. He deliberately threw the next 'ball' with all his might at the batsman, but was off target; the wicket-keeper was taken by surprise and as he had been rightly no-balled the score rose by four no-balls.

Andy remembers Curran bowling well in the first innings when he took four wickets, but before he came on Sri Lanka were reeling at 34 for five, with batsmen playing with an incredible lack of discipline and being caught in front of the wicket driving recklessly. In the second innings Hogg bowled superbly to take six cheap wickets. The defeat would have been much greater had not de Silva and Ratnayake added 80 for the ninth wicket.

Nowadays both teams are vastly more experienced, but Zimbabwe have yet to beat Sri Lanka at Test level. They came close on two occasions, once on the first Test-playing tour five years ago when they forced Sri Lanka to follow on in Bulawayo, and once during that controversial match in Colombo. Only Ranatunga of that first tour lasted long enough to play Zimbabwe in Test cricket, and now all the players from that 1982 tour have retired. It was an excellent tour from Zimbabwe's point of view, and a pity that it is so little remembered, possibly through the lack of well-known names in the opposition at that time.