Working out the fractions

The spectators who ran the gauntlet of the demonstrators at Lord's received about two-thirds of the overs expected today, and about one-third of the excitement. It was cloudy most of the time, and the ball moved about obligingly - so England's batsmen were never likely to run away with things after they were put in.

Zimbabwe's attack did just enough with the ball to throttle England back. There was sufficient lateral movement to strangle expansive shots at birth, and Michael Vaughan, normally so fluent, struggled to get off the mark.

Later Nasser Hussain was also tied down, and was lucky to survive a peach from Douglas Hondo that jagged away down the hill. When the sun came out, ironically, Hussain pulled Travis Friend's first ball down long leg's throat, thus ruining a thousand puns about Zimbabwe's Friendly bowling. England's left-handers did better: Marcus Trescothick passed 50 in a Test for the first time since the opening match of the Ashes series at Brisbane last November, and Mark Butcher jumped in behind some solid drives. But Butcher, too, was lucky to escape Hondo's clutches - early on Dave Orchard turned down what appeared to be a cast-iron lbw shout.

Andy Blignaut was the fastest bowler on display, although Heath Streak ran in as enthusiastically as ever. Streak was fortunate to trap Vaughan, who deflected the ball onto his stumps off his body, but unlucky not to remove Butcher, who was dropped at second slip. But his best move of the day was undoubtedly winning the toss. Looking at the cloud cover it was hard to escape the nagging feeling that the inexperienced Zimbabweans (only Grant Flower of their number has scored a Test century) might have been shot out for a decisively low score had Hussain and his bowlers had first go.