ZCO editorial, volume 3 issue 19

This has been a sleepy week for business, so please accept our apologies for a rather brief magazine this week. The main item is an interview with Zimbabwe's captain in Sri Lanka, Stuart Carlisle, who talks about that tour.

Carlisle is also likely to continue as Zimbabwe's captain in India, as the official captain Brian Murphy's ill fortune continues. He was recently struck down with appendicitis, and in any case the hand injury that forced his return from Sri Lanka is so serious that it will take another three or four weeks before he can even start bowling again with it - and then he will need to work to regain his bowling form.

It was hoped to include a report on the Zimbabwe Board XI's trip to Benoni to play Easterns B; an interview has been booked with Guy Whittall, who returned to top form with a century in the three-day match, but it was not possible to schedule it before the deadline for this issue, so that will have to wait until next week. Potted scores for those matches are included below, courtesy of the ZCU.

A draw in the three-day match will not help our chances of winning the Bowl competition, although the team is still top of the table. The worrying thing is that we are finding difficulty in bowling our opponents out more cheaply than ourselves. The players often point to the flat batting pitches that they seem to encounter everywhere these days, but in that case we should still be seriously outscoring our inexperienced opponents. That has not happened in our matches so far and, as in the one-day games, our successes come through run-chases. The lack of penetrative bowling is a matter for concern.

Three-Day Game 25 - 27 January 02 Match Drawn

Board XI 1st Innings 290 all out (93.1 overs) A Campbell 65, R Sims 37, G Whittall 100

Easterns `B' 1st Innings 329 all out (106 overs) R Price 30 - 5 - 100 - 4, R Sims 24 - 3 - 63 - 2

Board XI 2nd Innings 289 all out (95 overs) D Ebrahim 93, R Price 71, M Vermeulen 51

One Day Match - 28 January 02 Board XI won by 3 wickets

Easterns `B' 223 for 4 wickets in 45 overs R Price 9 - 0 - 33 - 2

Board XI 224 for 7 wickets in 44 overs D Ebrahim 31, R Sims 48, G Whittall 43, P Strang 46*