Zimbabwe Cricket Online volume 4, issue 24, 28 February 2003

Another hectic week in the World Cup, and some more shocks. Most notable was Kenya's great victory over Sri Lanka.

It is hard to not believe that Sri Lanka's defeat was caused as much by their own over-confidence as by Kenya's great performance. Incredibly, it seems that for the first time an associate member might reach the Super Sixes, thanks to their extra four points donated by a paranoid New Zealand.

CONTENTS:

• Zimbabwe v Australia: scorecard and report
• Dion Ebrahim: first-class record
• Letters

This will no doubt speed along Kenya's progress to Test status, but Test cricket is a different ball game altogether. Test cricket, before they were ready for it, seems if anything to have hampered Bangladesh's development in the short term, as they lost their way even against Canada. They have been battered so often that they do not even know how to beat associate members now, it would appear. It would be tragic if this were also to happen to Kenya.

I would be only too delighted to see Kenya playing Test cricket - as long as they were properly prepared for it. It would do neither them nor Test cricket any good to be humiliated match after match like the Bangladeshis. And it all could have been avoided had the ICC helped them arrange several years of unofficial international matches against the A teams from Test-playing countries, as happened with Zimbabwe.

Zimbabwe actually played better Test cricket ten years ago, when new on the scene, than they are doing today, in the view of others besides myself. Certainly the bowling was stronger then.

On the eve of the match against Holland, is there a chance that Zimbabwe could be humiliated by an associate member? Probably not yet. At the moment Zimbabwe still seem to have something of an inferiority complex when facing senior Test-playing countries, but are hugely confident against the minor countries and the players want to cash in. They are not yet secure enough to become over-confident. But one day it will happen!