Zimbabwe Cricket Union

5TH MATCH -- ZIMBABWE v INDIA

At Kanpur; 6 March 1996. INDIA 247/5 (N S Sidhu 80, V G Kambli 106, A D Jadeja 44*). ZIMBABWE 207 (G W Flower 30, H H Streak 30; S L V Raju 3/30). India won by 40 runs (full scorecard).

After Kenya's surprise victory over the grossly over-confident West Indies, Zimbabwe were remarkably still in with a mathematical chance of making the quarter-finals. The players knew that to do so they would have to beat India within about 29 overs, according to Heath Streak, but they also knew that their chances of doing that against the home side were minimal.

The Zimbabweans found Kanpur a pleasant ground, with a very quick outfield and a good batting pitch, if rather slow and allowing turn. It was completely packed with spectators. Apart from the match against Kenya, they put up on paper their best performance of the tournament here, although they were never able to build on their brief periods of success in order to make a real challenge towards the end of the match.

The team was staying a long way from the ground and it took over an hour for them to travel in. When they arrived at the ground, they were surprised to see how lush the outfield appeared. But as they went closer it was soon clear why: the local authorities had sprinkled grass shavings over the field and painted them green!

In this match, with nothing any longer at stake for Zimbabwe, the tour selectors planned to give an opportunity to Henry Olonga, who had not played so far. The talented Olonga's speedy but erratic deliveries did not make him an ideal one-day player, which was the reason for his exclusion until now. However, the player himself asked to be excluded, as he was very short of both practice and confidence, and was afraid he would be a liability to the team. Unfortunately this scenario, together with his exclusion from other matches, was presented as a racial incident by certain mischievous people back in Zimbabwe, and the ensuing publicity along these lines caused considerable embarrassment and upset to Olonga himself, who has never been guilty of any kind of provocative behaviour and knew the stories, written from thousands of miles away, were quite untrue.

Despite favourable batting conditions, Zimbabwe put India in to bat on winning the toss; after their many failures batting first, they decided to see if things would be any different when they had to chase a target. In the conditions they felt they did a very good job to restrict India to 247. The bowlers put in probably their best effort of the tournament, but it was let down by one of the team's worst fielding performances.

Heath Streak got Zimbabwe off to a fine start by bowling out Sachin Tendulkar for only two runs, which completely stunned the crowd for a while. The ball was just outside the off stump and Tendulkar tried to hit it firmly on the up off the back foot, but the ball moved back and bowled him through the gate off the inside edge. Sanjay Manjrekar and Mohammad Azharuddin both fell cheaply, both caught driving by Alistair Campbell at short midwicket, the latter a superb diving effort. Streak bowled a superb spell on a lifeless pitch.

Three wickets were down for only 32, but this was the limit of Zimbabwe's real success. Navjot Sidhu was still there and played a fine innings, assisted by rather too many bad balls. Vinod Kambli once again kept his best for Zimbabwe, although he was dropped in the deep off Grant Flower early in his innings. If that catch had been held, the course of the match might have been different. Paul Strang for once was mastered, but by the team with the greatest ability to play spin; he was not at his best on this occasion, however.

The pair added 142 in 29 overs. Sidhu was the more secure of the two, while Kambli offered three chances altogether during his innings. A very attacking batsman, he was particularly strong off his legs, but was able to play strokes all round the wicket. At the end Ajay Jadeja improved the scoring rate with a dashing innings, being particularly severe on Charlie Lock, scoring 19 off his last over. But on this pitch 247 was by no means an impossible target, rather one that the Zimbabwe team of today would back their chances of reaching.

Zimbabwe made a good start to their innings with an enterprising opening partnership of 59, reaching 50 in eleven overs, and briefly looked capable of making a real challenge. Then both openers fell in quick succession as the spinners came on, and they had to consolidate. Andy Waller was caught trying to hit Anil Kumble over the top, getting a leading edge, and immediately afterwards Grant Flower was dismissed in an unusual way in a one-day game, caught bat-pad. After 15 overs Zimbabwe were 61 for two, while India at that stage had been 44 for three.

Guy Whittall and Alistair Campbell dug in to try to effect a recovery, but Zimbabwe lacked the major innings required in such a situation; five batsmen passed 20, but none made more than 30. Once again Campbell was out to a soft dismissal after looking in fine form. Three wickets fell in successive overs before Andy Flower and Heath Streak shared a sixth-wicket partnership of 59, but the scoring rate was climbing and once they were separated it was only a matter of time.

Venkatapathy Raju was the Indian bowler with perhaps the greatest influence on the innings, taking three vital wickets and keeping the run rate down with his left-arm spin. It was another disappointing end to a most disappointing tournament for Zimbabwe.

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Date-stamped : 04 May1999 - 03:14