'We were disappointing at Lord's'

Zimbabwe's coach, Geoff Marsh, has admitted that his team need to improve in all areas of their game if they are to salvage some pride in the second npower Test against England, which begins at Chester-le-Street on Thursday.

Marsh, who took over from his fellow Australian Carl Rackemann two years ago, has been in charge of Zimbabwe during the most turbulent period of their 11-year Test status. Against a backdrop of political violence, they have won only one of their last 14 Tests - against Bangladesh in November 2001 - and have lost the last eight.

Zimbabwe travelled to England with a largely inexperienced squad, following the retirement of key players such as Andy Flower, and were thrashed by an innings and 92 runs in the first Test at Lord's, after losing 19 wickets on the third day alone. "Our form going into the first Test was really good," said Marsh, "but we were disappointing at Lord's and didn't handle the swing bowling that well. But we've sat down as a team and spoken about it."

Zimbabwe had hoped to arrive at Chester-le-Street with a victory against Middlesex under their belts, but their limited bowling attack was exposed once again. "We tried to make a game of it when we declared behind on Sunday and we wanted to play under a bit more pressure, batting fourth when it's going to turn a little bit," said Marsh. "We didn't bowl well here although we had all our bowlers resting for the Test, so we were very inexperienced with our bowling, but the batters all got a good hit in the game and that was pleasing."

"At the end of the day, we're one-down in the series with one Test match to go and we're really looking forward to going up there and improving our performance in all areas."