Zimbabwe: Gaining Test Status

Zimbabwe, as Rhodesia, played in the inter-provincial Currie Cup competition in South Africa and for cricketing purposes were under the authority of that country's administrators until independence in 1980. With the change in government continued association with South Africa was scarcely likely to be approved, but the Zimbabwe Cricket Union took the decision themselves to sever links with South Africa and go it alone in world cricket as a separate entity.

First came entry into the ICC competitions for associate members, with the winner each time earning a place in the World Cup competition. Zimbabwe won all three ICC competitions in which they took part, in 1982, 1986 and 1990, and never lost a match. In the World Cup they beat Australia in their very first match, in 1983, and England in 1991/92, and came very close to upsetting India in 1983 and New Zealand in 1987/88. All this time they were aiming for full Test status, and these performances showed they had a good case.

Zimbabwe played in the World Cup competition of 1991/92 in Australia and New Zealand, losing seven of their eight matches but turning in some impressive performances at times. Apart from their victory over England in their final match, their best match was their first, against Sri Lanka at New Plymouth in New Zealand, where they ran up 312 for four - Andy Flower batting right through for 115 on his one-day international debut - only for the opposition to win the match with 313 for seven.

In July 1992 the annual ICC meeting took place at Lord's, and Zimbabwe's application for Test status would again be on the agenda. It was crucial, as it was an open secret in Zimbabwe that if their application was again rejected, many of the country's top players would either retire or seek their fortunes in other countries, especially South Africa, recently returned to the international fold. Had this happened, cricket in Zimbabwe would probably never have recovered.

Some of the players involved commented as follows:

Dave Houghton: "I was going to continue playing. I was still playing club cricket overseas at the time as well and enjoying it, so I didn't have any plans to retire; I was still trying to make a living playing in England and just hoping we'd get back into the Currie Cup."

Andy Flower: "I remember that Grant and I were discussing leaving Zimbabwe and going to play domestic cricket in South Africa. We hadn't planned anything, but I suspect that if we hadn't got Test status we might well have moved on."

Grant Flower: "I thought maybe of going to South Africa or of going to play league cricket overseas."

Eddo Brandes: "I think I would still have been involved here, playing cricket as I did before Test status. A cricketer always wants to play county cricket, so you don't know how your career would have progressed without Test cricket, and I may have had an opportunity to do that."

Alistair Campbell: "I think the Graeme Hick route to county cricket might have been the case for a lot of us - not only me but also the two Flowers. We were still very amateur in those days and all the other players had jobs - your Arnotts, Pycrofts, Burmesters, Crockers, Brandes - and they would have continued playing here, but the youngsters, particularly myself and the two Flowers, might have tried to find an occupation elsewhere, much like the youth just before us, the Trevor Penneys, Graeme Hicks and suchlike.

"I think England was where everybody was going, and a lot of the guys I've spoken to over the years, the Bruk-Jacksons and suchlike, went and played second-team county cricket; those guys didn't carry it on, but I think it would have been the case with us - or maybe join the MCC staff. There were a few options open at that stage, and then progress from there, try and qualify and maybe play for England, but definitely county cricket."

Kevin Arnott: "I think I would have carried on playing first-class cricket as and when it was available. I realize that I had enormous limitations as a player but the prospect of Test status was certainly encouraging for those hoping to make a professional career out of it."

Malcolm Jarvis: "I would just have carried on playing as we'd always done. There was no real thought of quitting cricket."

Many, including some of the players, felt that Zimbabwe did not have the resources to succeed at Test level and a better path would have been to link up with South Africa again and rejoin the Currie Cup competition, even though that was unlikely to mean any Test cricket played in Zimbabwe.

Andy Pycroft: "Ironically I was one of many who were egging on for Test status, which is obviously the ultimate cricketing ambition for anyone, but didn't believe we could get it. So the mind was set that we probably wouldn't get it, it wouldn't happen in my time, and the regrets I have is that, having got it in 1992, I look back and say in 1982, which was when we really came on to the scene internationally after independence, we had a great side coming through, and why didn't we get it then? We had to go through three ICC tournaments and some really good results against international sides in three-day cricket on tours to Zimbabwe. But we lost cricketers during that time, and what a shame that that brilliant side, with all those youngsters coming through didn't have that chance. People like myself, at least I played Test cricket, and was able to play three Tests in the end before I retired, but it would have been great if we had been able to get it earlier."

Dave Houghton: "I must admit at the time I thought we had a choice between Test status and going back into the Currie Cup in South Africa. I know the players felt quite strongly at the time that we should go back into the Currie Cup because we weren't a very strong side and we were quite worried that we'd embarrass ourselves in Test cricket. My plans were very simply that if we didn't get Test status the second option would come about."

Andy Flower: "My own opinion was that we shouldn't get Test status, that we should try to rejoin the Currie Cup system and build our cricket from there. Those were my beliefs at the time. I was very surprised when we got Test status; I think we have been incredibly lucky to have played international cricket for ten years. We came into the game in this country at just the right time for us."

Eddo Brandes: "Obviously as a player I always wanted it to happen so we could play on the big stage. I think it probably came a few years too late; probably the best time to have got it would have been after the 1987 World Cup."

Alistair Campbell: "I thought we should have got Test status. We were at a stage where cricket needed to progress in this country. We definitely had enough players to succeed on the international stage, and we had shown that at the previous World Cups we had been to. We weren't push-overs and that was with very little experience or preparation, and 15 guys in the squad who all worked. So considering that and our dominance of the ICC Trophy for ten years, I think the time was right. We had some very good youngsters coming through, some very good experienced older players who were rated in world terms, the likes of Pycroft and Houghton, and obviously Eddo Brandes and John Traicos in the bowling stakes. I think that was prime time for us to be introduced slowly into the world arena because we had outgrown the ICC Trophy and were a lot better than those other sides and had a much better infrastructure."

Kevin Arnott: "I think it was important for the development of the game. I think if you look back in the last ten years, Zimbabwe in the Test arena has been competitive, more than most believed we would be, given our small pool of players. Cricket in Zimbabwe has become an enormous business."

Malcolm Jarvis: "It would have been nice to have had it earlier than we did because we lost a lot of good players by not getting Test status earlier."

John Traicos: "Whilst I favoured Zimbabwe getting Test status and believed we could compete at that level, I was apprehensive about Zimbabwe being able to maintain its standards in the long term and felt that we should wait a little longer. My fears were proved wrong as Zimbabwe has done extraordinarily well in its first ten years, thanks to the commitment of its players, sound administration and good coaching."

In 1990 Dave Ellman-Brown took over as president of the Zimbabwe Cricket Union in succession to Alwyn Pichanick, who had been president for many years but had to stand down on his government appointment as president of the Sports Commission. Dave, as vice-president, was his natural successor and the two had worked together to press Zimbabwe's claims for Test status.

Dave said, "We were very amateurish in those days because we had no secretariat, but only a very small committee that ran cricket. Alwyn ran it out of his office with his secretary and I ran my affairs out of my office with my secretary. I had a period of two years as president, and it was my wish then that we really press for Test status, bearing in mind that we had been pressing for Test status ever since we became an associate member of the ICC in 1981, after leaving the South African cricketing umbrella.

"We just made the qualification to go to the ICC competition for associate members in 1982. We had never been to Europe as a team and didn't really know what the strengths were, but history will show that we went to three ICC competitions and never lost a game; we won every single one of them (excluding two abandoned matches) and I think stamped our authority as the leading associate country.

"During that time Alwyn Pichanick and I had had several meetings with various countries to try and persuade them to allow us to become a Test-playing country. We received very little support, and in those days the constitution of the ICC was such that we had to have the vote of the two founder members (England and Australia) and that was the main difficulty. They then changed the rules whereby you had to get the support of one founder member and we thought this was our opportunity again to push for Test status. We realized that England were very much against any expansion of the Test-playing countries, bearing in mind that Sri Lanka had been admitted in 1981, so we believed that the people to push for support were Australia.

"Australia were very difficult: Malcolm Grey, their president at the time, was not supportive of us and we found it extremely difficult. England were sympathetic but at the end of the day, when it came to voting, wouldn't accept us. It really came down to the 1991/92 World Cup, by which time I was president and it was my ambition that we should seriously look for Test status at that time."

Thus began Dave Ellman-Brown's tremendous diplomatic offensive to persuade the other Test-playing nations to admit Zimbabwe to the top level. "I did a lot of lobbying among all the Test-playing countries, apart from England, whom I did not attempt to try to persuade because I knew with their structure they would certainly not support us. We've always had very good support from India, Pakistan, Sri Lanka and West Indies.

"During our days as an associate country we had West Indies A here three times and they were very supportive of our cricket, and always said they would support us for Test status. We also got very good support from India, and Pakistan and Sri Lanka came along with us, so there was never any problem with them.

"We now had to get the support of Australia. New Zealand then, out of the blue, advised us that they were sympathetic to our cause and we shouldn't even bother to go and talk to them as they had made up their minds and had already voted to support us. So the only country we still had to convince was Australia.

"Prior to the 1991/92 World Cup I went to Australia with my vice-president, Peter Chingoka, and we spent a good week or more before the start of the World Cup just trying to suss out the situation and make sure they were supportive of us. It was quite a hard task. The Aussies, as you know, are not easy to get round, but we got a lot of support from the authorities, the president and various board members, who did express to us their concerns about where we should go. Numbers came into it, and they were concerned that as a newly independent country numbers might change and whether we would have sufficient people in the future to play Test cricket. We said we believed we had, and we put forward a very good case.

"We had the opportunity of talking to their board because the chief executive of Australia at that time was David Richards who ultimately became the ICC chief executive. He said to me, 'David, there's only one way you can get our support, and that is to come and talk to our board and convince them that you believe we should support you for Test status.'

"So we did that; he advised us and gave us a slot at their board meeting, and Peter Chingoka and I gave them a presentation, a written presentation together with a verbal presentation, and we tried to cover every aspect we could. We got very few questions in response, and we weren't too sure when we left the meeting that we had convinced them. It was only that night, when we were flying to New Zealand for the first game in Auckland at the opening of the World Cup that David Richards jokingly said to me, 'You messed that up, didn't you?' But in fact he complimented us on our presentation and said that they would seriously look at us.

"During that World Cup I also spoke to Malcolm Grey, the president, and he said to me, 'David, well done; you've made a very good presentation and we're very impressed. Now we want to see whether you can play cricket or not.' And of course in that World Cup we beat England at Albury and I think that helped us tremendously to swing the people in our direction.

"It was a couple of months later that David Richards phoned me one Sunday, and I knew it wasn't to say bad luck. He said, 'We've just had a meeting of our overseas committee who were tasked to make a decision as to whether we should support you, and they are unanimously behind you and will support you.'

"So when we went to the ICC Annual meeting in July 1992 it was a foregone conclusion that we would actually get Test status. I remember before we left the media was speculating as to whether we were looking for Test status and I merely indicated that we were. The press were speculating about our chances but I knew we had it in the bag.

"At the meeting at Lord's Sir Colin Cowdrey, as he then was, the chairman of the ICC, asked us to step outside the room, and Peter Chingoka and I stood for what seemed like ages in the Long Room while the delegates discussed our case inside. Then Cowdrey came out with a smile and invited us to enter, and as we went in we received a warm welcome of applause from all inside.

"It so turned out that England and, funnily enough, Fiji abstained from voting. I don't know why Fiji did because they were only an associate country and one of the weakest; Philip Snow, their leader, was I think looking for a knighthood for his services to Fijian cricket and perhaps kept very close to England and didn't want to rock the boat, but it made no sense at all for him not to support us, because we were far too strong for the associates.

"I have to say that when we were looking for Test status, and after we had received it, there were a lot of people in Zimbabwe who criticized us and the route we had taken. They believed it was the right thing to link up again with South Africa, which was politically impossible. It was vitally important we went that route for the good of the game and I believe we have been proven correct.

"When you look back at the game in Zimbabwe over the last ten years, you can see there was an enormous explosion of cricket. Of late you have seen a whole restructuring of the administration of the game, a broadening of the game in all directions, and the development programme is enormous, so I think our decision to go the Test route was exactly correct. This country would never been able to do what it has done and what it is doing today without Test status.

"I think we got it too late - I think that had we got it even four years earlier we would have saved some of the players we lost. It was a great shame Graeme Hick never played Test cricket for us. Duncan Fletcher was another who left us; so did Peter Rawson, Kevin Curran and Trevor Penney. Those people could so easily have been playing for a long time for Zimbabwe had we got it earlier.

"I think ICC had a very narrow mind at that time about who they would let in as a Test-playing country. Since then they have let in Bangladesh, and when you see what they made us go through, compared to what Bangladesh had done prior to being awarded Test status it is ridiculous.

"I am very proud of the fact that we were able to organize so many A team tours to this country, and we saw the best of our modern Test players during that period when they were playing for their countries' A sides. The West Indies side was an unbelievable side; the Australian side that came here was a wonderful team. We got support from all those countries who sent their A sides here and helped develop cricket in Zimbabwe. So we had a wonderful record, and a wonderful one-day record in particular. We had some good players and the era under Duncan Fletcher was a very good era."

What would be the state of Zimbabwe cricket today had our application for Test cricket failed? "That decision to get Test status was absolutely critical for the future of Zimbabwe cricket. I'm glad we took it; we took the criticism, and a lot of those who criticized at the time have changed their minds. If we had not been given Test status then, cricket in this country would have failed completely. I think the game would be non-existent today.

"One very important decision was taken at that time. When South Africa was allowed back as a Test-playing country, one year before we got Test status. I said to Lord Cowdrey at that time that if, having allowed South Africa to come in at the eleventh hour, they did not give us the lifeline of also having Test status, cricket in this country would have died a natural death. All our top players would have tried to get into South Africa to play cricket there, and the game would be totally non-existent today beyond club cricket.

"But as it was, we got it. The development came in, the money came in, we had some very lucrative tours, and we've spent an awful lot of money on developing the infrastructure and on developing our young Zimbabwe cricketers."

It was primarily thanks to Dave Ellman-Brown's vision and energy that Zimbabwe achieved Test status and survived as a viable cricketing entity; he proved to be the right man in the right place at the right time - as indeed did Andy Flower as a player.

"I think I was very lucky in that I only started playing proper international cricket at the age of 24," Andy said. "I had done a lot of the groundwork already in playing first-class and club cricket, and some of the youngsters these days are thrown right in at the deep end without that groundwork in first-class cricket or plying their trade in England or other places."

Dave Houghton: "I was a little bit surprised (we were granted Test status) because it seemed to me that if they were going to give us Test status they should have done it in about 1986 when we were a really strong side and had won our second ICC Trophy. I was surprised they gave it to us at that time because we were a weak team. Our strength had been depleted with the loss of Graeme Hick, Peter Rawson and Kev Curran and so on. I was also a little worried because I just didn't think we were strong enough, so there was a fear of embarrassment as well, that we might go out there and get beaten in two days."

Alistair Campbell: "I was positive; I thought things would happen. I remember listening to it on the BBC with my old man in the bedroom where he had his receiver, but prior to that I was confident. There had been a lot of hard work done and a lot of positive vibes emanating from the powers that be regarding that meeting. There were obviously a few issues there, such as the English, but I think the other countries realized that for the greater good of the game, and they were proven right."

Things moved swiftly after that vital ICC meeting, although Dave Ellman-Brown did not find it easy to arrange tours immediately. "When we got Test status, the decision was taken on the last day of the conference, so we didn't have much time to lobby for tours. I remember distinctly when the meeting was finished they hurried together a press conference and made the announcement, and after that we just had a function that night and then everybody goes home. So it was a case of running around to the presidents and chief executives of the various countries and saying, 'We're now a Test-playing country, so how about organizing some tours?'"

India, one of Zimbabwe's leading supporters, were eager for the honour of playing in the inaugural Test, and this was arranged for three months after that crucial ICC meeting, in October 1992. New Zealand also agreed to stop over on their way to Sri Lanka.

"It was a case of making contact with all the countries, but it's not easy to break into an existing system," said Dave Ellman-Brown. "All those countries had their own tours arranged, so it was very difficult to get tours initially, and it was over the years difficult to tie people down to come. We did on occasions try to marry tours together with teams coming to South Africa, and that worked, but the greatest thing that happened was the ten-year programme that we have now. For that we can thank Chris Doig, the then chief executive of New Zealand cricket, who put it together about two years before it was all approved. That was wonderful, because we know we're going to get two tours at home and two abroad every year, as a standard procedure.

"But in those early days it was not easy, and we have to thank India for their support. But today I think everybody is supportive and it's a wonderful club of cricketing countries. There is politics creeping into it and there are problems at the moment, and I hope those problems go away, but by and large it's a grouping of countries and people who want to see the game develop. So cricket is assured now in Zimbabwe as long as there is no interference on the political front."

Despite his original feelings, Andy Flower felt thrilled at the prospect of playing Test cricket for Zimbabwe. "To play against the best in the world is exactly what you want to be doing," he said. "We had been handed this opportunity to do it. It was very hard sometimes because we were getting beaten most of the time, and that makes it tough to carry on persevering - but it is an honour to carry on playing against the best in the world."

Eddo Brandes: "Our preparation was probably much the same as for all cricket tours, but there was a lot more excitement, because we were going into this new level of cricket which was Test cricket."

Alistair Campbell: "It was huge. There was a change of attitude, one of those things where you need a change of mind-set. You need to practise more, be more professional about our approach. I can remember we got paid Z$800 for our first Test match, but it wasn't about money at that stage; it was about having the opportunity to play international cricket, making sure that we proved to the people who voted for us that we could compete among the elite.

"There was no talk in those days of winning; there was talk of competing, which was the big word. To be competitive we had to be gutsy, and with Houghton and Pycroft being very experienced campaigners we talked about the need to bat for long periods of time, longer than we had ever batted before. Some of the guys had played a few four-day games, but the most the rest of the guys had played was a bit of three-day cricket, and this was suddenly five-day cricket. We talked about the need for bowlers to bowl more overs than they were used to bowling, and it needed a whole shift of mindset. Dave Houghton did that well, as did John Hampshire, who was employed as our first fulltime coach. He was really good for us just starting off in international cricket. He spoke very simply; he was a Yorkshireman so he was as tough as nails, and he really was a tremendous help to us in those formative years of Test cricket and did a tremendous job.

"It was also a matter of just feeling our way through those first few years. No one knew exactly what to expect; people had been told and had obviously spoken to people, and John Hampshire had played Test cricket; on Zimbabwe's previous tours home and abroad we had spoken to ex-Test players, so there had been the opportunity to speak about Test cricket. But it's all very well speaking about it, it's playing it for five days, and the mindset and mental toughness that you need. We've had to teach ourselves over the years, and once you have a Test culture, like countries that have been playing it for a hundred years, and we're still getting that. But I think from those days in 1992 to what we have now, the infrastructure and the results we've been able to post with the resources we have has been a real testimony to those who have played and the administrators upstairs as well."

Grant Flower: "I just remember John Hampshire, our coach, trying to drum into us, especially the openers, the importance of batting long periods and breaking it down into sessions, which we had never done before or been told about."

Zimbabwe were to do better, on the whole, in their early Tests than they often did in later years; it was not until they first played in Sri Lanka in 1996/97, for their 17th Test match, that they were really overwhelmed. Andy Flower said, "I think part of the reason is that we had experienced players in those days, as opposed to youngsters thrown in at the deep end; we had guys like John Traicos, Dave Houghton, Malcolm Jarvis and Kevin Arnott to hold things together - experienced first-class cricketers. I know they didn't play for long, but while we had them they were a steadying influence. Certainly that was my memory of them as a young cricketer.

"Also I think some of the standards of international cricket have improved over the last ten years, and it's a harder school now. One-day cricket is a more aggressive game by a long way, and standards all round have improved in one-day cricket. Test cricket I think has become more aggressive too, so we're not only trying to hold our own, we're also trying to improve to keep up with these other teams, let alone catch up.

"I remember it being a very nervous build-up to the Inaugural Test," he continued. "John Hampshire was our coach and he was a big influence on all of us. He emphasized the basics all the time, whether those basics were catching everything that came straight to us, taking a certain percentage of the half-chances, batting for time, making sure your footwork was simple but correct: when you had to get forward, get forward into a solid position, and when you had to get back and across do it; leave the ball, and bat for little sessions - I'm sure you'll hear most of the batsmen say similar things. He just kept drumming this into people. Those are some of the basics that should be revisited all the time by international cricketers."

John Hampshire, former Yorkshire and England cricketer and later international umpire, certainly deserves much of the credit for Zimbabwe's remarkable performances in their early Tests. Kevin Arnott remembers how he identified with the spirit almost of desperation among the Zimbabwe players on the eve of that inaugural Test, and could tell of the time when he himself made his Test debut against West Indies in 1969, and responded with a vital century after coming in with England in some difficulty. So inspired were the Zimbabwe players that they went in the next day and responded with 456.

Dave Houghton: "We employed 'Hamps' as coach, and I think that was probably the best thing that happened to us because I'm sure he realized the enormity of the situation. The first thing he did was to get us to go right back to basics and literally count every ball that was bowled for the next five days - play it ball by ball, over by over, 15 overs to drinks, 15 overs to lunch, and so on, trying to occupy the crease for as long as possible.

"Our preparation was basically that we wanted this game to go five days. The best result would obviously be a victory, but the next best result would be a draw and the next best result would be losing in five days. We wanted to prove that we could actually play five days and that was what our preparation was about: how do we go about playing for five days?"

Eddo Brandes: "He (Hampshire) was probably an ideal coach for us initially. He was a Test match umpire, a Test cricketer, and he knew what it was all about. So we weren't completely in the dark as to what Test cricket was about. He was a stabilizing influence, and his character also was stabilizing. He wasn't very excitable; he just got on like an English professional would do and got us to prepare for the game with that in mind."

Kevin Arnott: "I remember very clearly that it was largely John Hampshire who inculcated into us a philosophy of simple things done well. Most of us were reasonably fit coming into the Test series, but John made it very clear that he wouldn't take any laggers, and I can assure you that by the time the Inaugural Test took place everybody was in peak fitness. So the physical side was there; the actual playing preparation was also under the guidance of John and he made sure that we developed the ability, talking personally as an opening batsman, to leave most of the balls we felt we couldn't score off and to play in sessions.

"He then made it very clear to us that all that would be academic unless the mental preparation was there, and I think it's largely in this area that his guidance was most helpful. I think it showed in the Inaugural Test because the record shows that for a large part of that match we were on top of the game. Although we were very slow on the first day, thereafter we were very much in the driving seat. It was really only Manjrekar who saved the game for them."

Malcolm Jarvis: "It was the first time we had really had a coach for the team. Normally it was left to chaps like Duncan Fletcher and the players to do all the coaching; now we had a fulltime professional coach in. One line that 'Hamps' always used with us was "Simple things done well." As long as we did the simple things and did them well, the other things would fall into place."

John Traicos, the only player with previous Test experience, said, "Having played Test cricket obviously helped in appreciating the pressures of international cricket and realizing that it is just another game of cricket played at a tougher standard. Good mental and physical preparation was the key and in this regard John Hampshire, the coach, and David Houghton, the captain, were outstanding. John Hampshire recounted his first Test at the pre-Test team talk - it gave everyone an idea of the pressures of Test cricket and how they could be handled."

How did the Zimbabwe players feel they would do as they prepared to face India on the biggest stage of all for the first time? "Our feelings were always positive; you always believe you can win," claimed Eddo Brandes. "But then after playing a game, you find out there is a big void between playing first-class cricket and Test cricket. But the build-up was that we genuinely believed we would be able to perform."