1ST MATCH -- ZIMBABWE v NEW ZEALAND

New Zealand were without their greatest bowler Richard Hadlee, who had been unwilling to tour India. Dave Houghton found this particularly disappointing as the Zimbabweans never had the opportunity to play against him. Others in the team may have been less unhappy!

With four years having passed since they last met full international opposition, the Zimbabweans again felt nervous before the start and conscious of taking a big step up again. They knew some of the New Zealand team, including Jeff Crowe, from the Young New Zealand tour of Zimbabwe two years earlier.

The weather was hot and humid as New Zealand decided to bat on winning the toss, on a slowish pitch, in front of a comparatively small crowd of perhaps just over ten thousand, in a large stadium, but the crowd supported Zimbabwe as they considered them less of a threat to their own team than New Zealand, and also due to a tendency to support the underdogs.

New Zealand sent in Martin Snedden to open, in effect as a pinch-hitter, long before that term was ever used in cricket circles. The move had succeeded for them for Snedden took his chances and batted very well, although he was dropped early on. He attacked everything from the first ball and was particularly harsh on Peter Rawson, who was by no means fully fit; nor were Curran or Brandes, which took most of the sting out of the fast-medium attack.

Apart from Snedden and Martin Crowe, New Zealand did not look like a capable batting side, and many of them fell to poor strokes. Ali Shah's gentle medium-pace helped to dismiss two batsmen without scoring. Crowe himself was out to a fine caught-and-bowled by Rawson; trying to drive him powerfully over his head, he found the bowler sticking up a hand and pulling off a startling one-handed catch. Brandes feels he bowled relatively tightly to Crowe and prevented him from becoming completely dominant. The New Zealand innings declined from 143 for one to 169 for five before it recovered to 242 for seven, a total the Zimbabweans thought they were quite capable of overhauling on that pitch.

Zimbabwe, according to Robin Brown, batted very badly in reply. Ewan Chatfield bowled immaculately on one side of the wicket and the Zimbabweans tried to hit the ball around the field instead of just playing straight. They lost both openers quickly, and Dave Houghton, having kept wicket throughout the New Zealand innings, found himself at the crease in the first over. He was due to bat almost to the end of the match in tremendous heat, and lost about ten pounds in weight. Malcolm Jarvis remembers him walking in with sweat literally squelching through the holes in his shoes.

Pycroft was run out when sent back by Houghton, a method of dismissal that was to dog Pycroft regularly during his first two World Cup campaigns. The middle order collapsed and defeat looked imminent when Iain Butchart joined Houghton at 104 for seven. Ewan Chatfield and Willie Watson, both at just over medium-pace, were the best of New Zealand's limited attack, with Chatfield's guile and accuracy particularly impressive.

There are few to equal Butchart in a situation like this, though, while Houghton was completely uninhibited by the crisis and playing in his own inimitable style. He played some magnificent strokes, including numerous daring sweeps and reverse-sweeps, and hits over the top of the field, and improvising as only he could do. He hit 6 sixes altogether, including some fine pulls and sweeps, and a couple of drives over extra cover off Dipak Patel. It was rated by critics at the time as one of the best international innings ever seen. At one stage he played the reverse sweep so frequently that it agitated his team-mates and the manager Don Arnott, who sent out a message to him in the middle, telling him he was playing well and not to risk his wicket with strokes like that. Houghton's reply was very firmly that he was intent on playing his own game. Kevin Arnott recalls taking Houghton a similar message from Traicos, and having to take back the reply that the batsman was so tired that he could not hear anything and would rather carry on doing it his own way!

Unfortunately towards the end of his innings he started suffering from cramp after being on the field virtually all day and could hardly run. The score had just passed 200 when he spoke to Butchart between overs and told him that he was going to try to score everything in boundaries as he was too cramped and exhausted to run any longer. He proceeded to hit Snedden for four boundaries in an over, but was then dismissed by a fine catch by Martin Crowe. Crowe had been brought up to mid-on from the boundary, so Houghton decided to try to hit a four over his head. He lofted the ball too much, though, and Crowe raced back thirty metres or more to hold the ball high over his head just inside the boundary. John Bracewell was actually better placed to take the catch but Crowe, knowing how crucial this wicket was, trusted nobody else to hold it and backed himself to take the catch that eventually won the match for his team. The score was now 221 for eight, with 22 needed in four overs to win.

The Zimbabwean players are unanimous that Houghton's innings was either one of the best or the very best they had ever seen. Even Clive Lloyd, the adjudicator for the Man of the Match, said that it was the best one-day innings he had ever seen.

Then misfortune and nerves struck the Zimbabweans hard. Brandes, not fully fit anyway and having been sitting waiting to bat for a long time in the heat, was run out off the next ball without facing himself. Butchart was facing the last ball of Snedden's over, the batsmen having crossed; he pushed a ball to Crowe at mid-on for a fairly easy run to keep the strike, but Brandes, not expecting a run, pulled a leg muscle before he was halfway down the pitch and was unable to hobble to safety in time. Brandes believes his basic problem was dehydration; during his long wait in the heat and humidity he had lost a great deal of liquid and not replenished it sufficiently.

Butchart, in partnership now with last man Traicos, took the next over from Snedden and hit him out of the ground for a huge six, which really made the crowd roar with excitement. Finally six runs were needed off the final over, to be bowled by spinner Stephen Boock since the other pace bowlers had completed their ten-over allocations.

Two singles were scored off the first two balls, which gave Butchart the strike off the third, with just four runs now required. He struck the ball well, only for a fielder to make a diving stop so that no run was possible. He swept at the fourth ball, which hit him on the pad and bounced out to point, where there was no fielder. A single may have been a possibility, but tragically the batsmen had different ideas of how the game was to be won. Traicos called for a run, but Butchart was confident of his ability to hit one of the two remaining balls to the boundary and wanted to keep the strike. His team-mates were of the same opinion, that their best chance of victory was for him to keep the strike.

Butchart suddenly found his captain joining him in the crease, ordering him to run, while the wicket-keeper himself fetched the ball and returned it to the bowler's end. It was not a very good throw by Smith, but Boock reached high and threw the ball accurately at the wicket. Butchart had by then made what could be no more than a token gesture to reach the far end, and the game was over in sickening fashion for the Zimbabweans.

Butchart blames himself for both of these run-outs, a view not shared by his team-mates. In both cases he as the senior batsman was trying to keep the strike; he obviously had the better chance of scoring the runs to win the match, and his record over the years shows that he rarely failed in such situations. The team was not only disappointed to lose, but were perhaps even more hurt for Dave Houghton after his wonderful innings. Many of them had reason to blame themselves, as the scorecard would have been sheer disaster without Houghton and Butchart.

Houghton was an obvious choice as Man of the Match, not a frequent distinction for a member of the losing side, but his great innings without doubt outclassed every other individual performance in that match.

The two teams enjoyed socialising together after the match and build on a number of friendships; John Wright in particular is mentioned by several Zimbabweans as a player they liked and respected. They had stayed together in the same hotel for several days before the match, but the New Zealand policy was that they were there to win the match, and they did not socialise until it was over.

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