Limited-overs cricket is a wretched business when you are down and a treat when you are up. At the end of last summer England used it to their advantage, bouncing back at Pakistan, who had outplayed them in the Test matches, and finishing the series with optimism. Now it is their turn to suffer the indignity of these instant defeats.
One-day games are so much more straightforward than Test matches. They dictate to the players, whose response is restricted by the rules and by the short space of time during which the games are played.
This makes them less fascinating, because the play is more reactive than proactive. In Test matches a cricketer has choices to make and technique to depend upon, in limited overs matches he can get away with thumping the ball, bowling straight and fielding as if life itself depended upon it. Which is what Zimbabwe have done over the three matches. This is not by way of indiffer- ence to their achievement, because there is a modern art in their success and plenty of old-fashioned basics too, more it is a fact of the modern game and will become more so as one-day cricket takes over the world.
It is bound to take over the world because it sells and, if something sells cricket, it is worth expanding because the game faces fierce competition from recreation and simpler sports of all types.
Both matches in Harare were sold out, as Bulawayo nearly was. The Test matches drew nothing more than a sprinkle of support. Zim- babwean cricket is on the map now because of this week of one-day stuff in Harare, and even Robert Mugabe, the President without a passion for cricket, whatever propaganda we are fed, admitted as much by sending his congratulations over the public address sys- tem.
Golfer Nick Price, who celebrated in the Zimbabwe dressing-room after the match and who has done more for global awareness of his country's sport than anyone, nearly fell off his bench at Mugabe's message.
Mugabe's men won because they played with discipline, purpose and brains. They appeared a crack troop, too fast, too slick, too smart for their sloppy, out of one-day condition opponents. Zimbabwe were the stronger team, and betting on them would have made you some money a month ago.
The match will be remembered for Eddo Brandes's hat-trick, as it should be, but it will not be forgotten either for Zimbabwe's fielding and their free-spirited batting.
Previously Brandes has been an unfulfilled cricketer. A talented but flabby performer, who relied upon his reputation for selection; a big, strong chicken-farming man of more huff than puff. Last year Zimbabwe discovered Henry Olonga and two other young black bowlers, who were keen to rise from their roots and lead their people to cricket, so Zimbabwe backed them and Brandes was left to stew.
He did not stew for long. Shaken by exclusion, he lost a stone in weight and practised until dark. Yesterday Lady Luck smiled on his bowling and the chicken-farmer came to Harare to roost.
The first victim in the hat-trick was the left-handed Nick Knight, who was suckered again, as he was in the Test, by the tactic of bowling at his backside and encouraging him to tickle to fine leg. Knight tickled instead to the wicketkeeper, and all the Zimbabwe team were tickled by that.
The second in the hat-trick was the big prize, the in-form John Crawley, whose rave reviews were not exaggeration. Early in his innings Crawley loves to play to leg, not so much as he used to, but the instinct is still there, probably always will be as it was with Vivian Richards, and, if the ball is pitched right that is full, straight and moving a little to the slips - Crawley might not resist his instinct. There was no sign of the face of the bat when the fast first ball hit his pads, just the sign of the umpire's approval and of Brandes's delight. The third piece of the hat-trick was the coup de grce, a sublime moment of cricket that took the lid off the place. Nasser Hussain does not start well, not many do, but he employs resolve to overcome indecision.
Like Crawley, he has an inherent fault, which he irons at daily but never completely eradicates, and again, as with Crawley, Brandes knew the fault and exposed it by pitching the perfect outswinger just a fraction outside the offstump and watching as Hussein's slightly open, slightly angled blade edged low to first slip. It was hard to see if the edge would have carried to slip, and we shall never know because Andy Flower, the wicketkeeper batsman, who had quite a day himself, flew at full stretch to his right to take a marvellous catch.
Well, you should have seen them dance their jig of joy. Big Eddo, the chicken-farmer hugged by his team and hailed by his people .
It was the most impressive fast bowling - thoughtful and laced with swing and fire. Nothing afterwards could match it, though Eddohh did his best by adding the double top of Alec Stewart and Michael Atherton to his earlier bulls-eyes.
Barely more than six hours earlier Atherton had won the toss for the second successive match and must have thought his worm had turned. Not a bit of it, thought the usually passive Grant Flower, who went after England's new ball as if he owned it.
Over mid-off and extra cover were his favourites and typically he ran like a hare. When he was out it seemed the impetus must be lost. Not a bit of that either, because brother Andy cast off his shackles of seriousness and played strokes of skill and daring. Two strokes, one after each other, when he swept a good-length ball from Irani from outside off stump over square leg for six and then drove another good-length ball from middle and leg over extra cover for four, were from the gods of cricket.
Best of all from the collective view was the ground fielding, which would have brought a purring of approval from the man who made the mould, that Rhodesian legend Colin Bland. Time and time again fielders threw themselves at the ball, found their feet and winged in flat returns that intimidated oppressed batsmen.
Yes, this was exclusively Zimbabwe's day and exclusively Zimbabwe's one-day series. It provided something to build upon for the future of the game in cricket's newest nation.