Zimbabwe In India tour preview

The Zimbabwe cricket team leaves for India on Saturday 4 November, for a tour that includes two Test matches and five one-day internationals. The touring team for the Test-match section is as follows:

Heath Streak (captain), Guy Whittall (vice-captain), Alistair Campbell, Stuart Carlisle, Andy Flower, Grant Flower, Travis Friend, Trevor Madondo, Doug Marillier, Brian Murphy, Mluleki Nkala, Henry Olonga, Gavin Rennie, Bryan Strang, Paul Strang.

The Management team consists of Babu Meman as manager, Carl Rackemann as coach, physiotherapist Amato Machikicho and fitness trainer and computer analyst Malcolm Jarvis.

The most notable omissions from the party are Craig Wishart and Pommie Mbangwa. Current form appears to be the criterion here, as neither has done particularly well this season, but on the other hand neither has enjoyed security in the team.

Wishart in particular has been in and out of the side for several years without ever being given a decent run. When India last visited Zimbabwe two years ago Grant Flower missed the tour with a broken finger and Wishart was promoted to take his place. He responded with two crucial innings in the Test match - without his fifty in the second innings Zimbabwe could scarcely have won the match, as they did - and a match-winning century in the third one-day international, but when Grant returned he was dropped to the lower middle order, where success is hard to come by, especially in the one-day matches. Not surprisingly he failed to score as heavily and soon lost his regular place again. Recently he has been given a few chances to open in one-day matches but, never sure of his place from one match to another, he has not done well and was quickly supplanted by Doug Marillier, who had tow good matches, failed in Sharjah and in turn was dropped. Wishart went to Sharjah but did not get a game; now he won't even be going to India. He is a player who needs confidence, and he has not received enough.

Mbangwa is also unlucky, having bowled quite well in the Harare Test against New Zealand but suffered heavy punishment in the four one-day matches he has played this season. He is a much better Test bowler, especially in support of Heath Streak and Henry Olonga when they are on fire, but he is not to get the chance in India.

Travis Friend, after his remarkable success in Sharjah where he took nine wickets and bowled well on unhelpful pitches, has probably been given Mbangwa's place and could well make his Test debut, especially if Olonga is unfit. He is also a more than useful batsman, giving him an advantage here over Mbangwa. Bryan Strang keeps his place; in four matches in Sharjah he scored no runs and took no wickets, yet bowled superbly and was Zimbabwe's most economical bowler of the tournament. Mluleki Nkala, despite his lack of bowling consistency, also remains in the team as he is undoubtedly a player of the future.

The specialist spin bowling attack consists of the two leg-spinners, Paul Strang and Brian Murphy, now released from his studies at the University of Cape Town. Strang is reportedly still suffering to some extent from his long-standing arm injury, and Murphy may well come into the Test team. Indian wickets tend to favour spinners rather than pace bowlers, but so do Indian batsmen, so only one of the two may win a Test place. Grant Flower and Gavin Rennie can both bowl left-arm spin, but no place was found for another of the same type, Dirk Viljoen, despite his resurgence with the bat in Sharjah. He will surely fly out to play in the one-day series.

Gavin Rennie's place was in doubt after his lack of success in the New Zealand Tests and his omission from the one-day matches, although he actually has a better record than virtually anybody in scoring runs at number six or seven in one-day cricket. Fortunately the selectors have resisted the temptation to shuffle the openers yet again, and he looks like being given a decent run as Grant Flower's opening partner, although Doug Marillier will also come into the reckoning.

Trevor Madondo has been given a place ahead of the likes of Wishart, and as the country's leading black batsman he is obviously a player the administrators would like to succeed and give a lead to other black batsmen in the country. Stuart Carlisle can now be considered as a regular instead of a fringe player, barring some startling form by his rivals, after the departures of Murray Goodwin and Neil Johnson, although after years on the fringes he will doubtless be less confident of his permanency himself.

As far as results go, Zimbabwe are up against it. They have played one-day tournaments several times in India, but have only had one previous tour there in their own right, back in 1992/93, our first season in international cricket. They lost all three one-day internationals and also the Test match by an innings, although that did prove to be the match that established the Flower brothers as batsmen of genuine Test-match quality.

Zimbabwe are never predictable and they are always capable of beating India, even on Indian soil, if they can get their collective act together and have the right attitude which was so clearly missing against New Zealand until the last two one-dayers. India are stronger in batting than in bowling, so there could be some high-scoring matches. Zimbabwe should be competitive in most matches; doubtless, just to show they are still Zimbabwe, there will be one or two heavy defeats, and hopefully the odd victory. They may even surprise us by doing better than that. They have the ability to do so, but the putting together is often the problem.