Tour Summary and Analysis of Zimbabwean Prospects

Zimbabwe's Tour of England, Aug-Sep 93
The key word on this tour was RAIN. It  was  always  around,
and affected most of the matches. The tour went as follows:
1-day vs President's World XI : tied.
3-day vs President's World XI : drawn.
1-day vs Glamorgan    : Glam won by 58 runs.
1-day vs Warwickshire : abandoned (rain).
3-day vs Surrey       : drawn.
3-day vs Kent         : Kent won by 198 runs.
Zimbabwe had a good chance of winning the Surrey  match  but
lost too much time on the last day because of rain. The Kent
match  was  also  heavily  rain-affected,  only   a   double
declaration on the last day gained a result.
The Zimbabwe performances were encouraging, despite the lack
of  good  results.   They  brought a very young team on this
tour, the average age of the 14 players was  24,  with  only
three  players  older  than 25. Stalwarts like John Traicos,
Ali Shah and Andy Pycroft were not included.  The  ZCU  have
basically  decided that the next few years are going to be a
learning process, and as such they're better  off  investing
their  time  in  the young players rather than sticking with
the veterans. Former skipper Dave  Houghton  confirmed  that
the  Surrey  match  was his last game for Zimbabwe, and it's
unlikely that Traicos, although not officially retired, will
carry on much longer.
Zimbabwe's batting will be heavily dependent on  the  Flower
brothers,  Andy  and  Grant,  over the next few years, along
with left-handed no. 3 Alistiar Campbell. These three almost
won  the  Surrey  game for Zimbabwe - they needed 256 to win
off 59 overs, and were 122-1 at tea  with  Andy  Flower  and
Campbell  keeping the scoring rate above 4 an over. But more
time was lost due to rain and wickets were lost with batsmen
trying  to  keep up with an almost impossible run rate. They
eventually gave up with 6 wickets down, and even  more  rain
completed  the  job.  The Kent game was a bit of a disaster,
but with Houghton, Andy  Flower  and  veteran  opener  Kevin
Arnott all missing the match Zimbabwe's batting lacked depth
(only 4  specialist  batsmen  played)  and  experience.  The
second  innings  collapse  to  83  all  out  was not totally
unexpected under the circumstances.
The bowling looked promising, but is not yet  anywhere  near
world-class.  Veteran  Eddo  Brandes was sharp at times, and
left-armer David Brain had some good spells (notably 6-48 in
the first innings of the Kent game when they were reduced to
32-5 at one stage). One newspaper reporter  even  said  that
Brain  should  be  snapped  up by a county, he's probably as
good as Ilott or any of the other England lefties - probably
a very generous assessment, but I'm sure it was appreciated!
Teenagers Heath Streak (who also looks a good  batsman)  and
Dan Rowett showed some promise, but they've still got a long
way to go. A lot of the  bowling  was  done  by  off-spinner
Steve   Peall,   who   had  three  3-for  performances.  The
Zimbabweans think he can be a very good bowler,  if  he  can
keep  his discipline - according to Dave Houghton he has the
ability to put on 10 kg of weight in an evening at the bar!
To summarise, the Zimbabweans have some very promising young
players but it will be a good few years before they can hope
to produce a truly world class side, if at all. The  success
of their under 19 side this year (they won the international
tournament in Denmark, beating England in the  final)  shows
that the talent is there, if the problems of lack of finance
(the low exchange value of the Z$ is really  crippling)  and
simple logistics can be overcome. At the end of the day, the
key will almost certainly be whether  or  not  some  of  the
native Zimbabwean population can be persuaded to switch from
football to cricket - it's  unlikely  the  small  white  and
Asian  minorities  in  the  country  can  sustain  the  game
indefinitely.
Thanks to Don Hughes on r.s.c.
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