It never rains in Harare either. It pours. When the England captain finally made it to Zimbabwe's capital, he found the place knee deep in puddles. Harare has had daily storms for the past fortnight, and it may be that England are now fated for this series to end in a watery stalemate.
The England players arrived at Bulawayo airport yesterday morning to catch two chartered single-engined planes to the Falls, only to discover that there were two planes but only one pilot. The other had called in sick with malaria.
Atherton, the coach David Lloyd, the manager John Barclay and pace bowler Chris Silverwood, all volunteered to stand down, on the basis that they had been there before.
Atherton, though, was a lot chirpier yesterday than he had been the previous evening, not least because he managed - while Barclay was searching for transport to Harare - to beat his chess computer for the first time.
Lloyd's post-Test match comments, albeit in the hot blood of disappointment, were ludicrously over the top. His greatest strengths - enthusiasm and patriotism - may yet turn out to be his greatest weaknesses.
He also made an oblique reference to the umpiring when he said: ``We had to take 15 wickets to get them out,'' omitting to add that Andy Waller's unfortunate dismissal meant that England had only had to take nine wickets to get Zimbabwe out in the first innings.
Lloyd claimed that England, after a ``dodgy'' first session, had ``played brilliantly over the five days''. If this is brilliance, heaven help us when England only play quite well.
Any sober judgment on the Test match would be that England were below par in too many crucial areas against a side they ought to wipe the floor with, yet to listen to Lloyd you would have thought that the bookmakers had immediately slashed the odds for next summer's Ashes series. If they have, it would have been from 100-1 to 99-1.
Meantime, Yorkshire's Craig White has joined the squad in Harare and, given his fitness record in recent years, England were grateful that he made it down the aircraft steps without breaking a leg.
White is ostensibly here as cover for Ronnie Irani, who has a sore back, though White is almost certain to go straight into the side for the second Test starting on Boxing Day.
Irani will probably spend the next few weeks attempting to remodel his action. He has already done so once before, following a stress fracture of the back, but Lloyd is worried that it has resulted in a serious loss of pace.
There was also more disappointment for Nick Knight yesterday, when he learned that the Bulawayo match scorers had reached for the Tippex to alter their original adjudication that Darren Gough had been run out attempting the third run to win Sunday's Test. After studying television replays, Gough is officially not out, and Knight run out for 96.
Knight at least had the good grace to admit afterwards that England would also have adopted Zimbabwe's wide bowling tactics had the roles been reversed, although the man who bowled the last over, Heath Streak, confessed that the home team's bowlers had been ``lucky to get away with it''.
The most controversial wide of all, or non-wide as it turned out, was the third last delivery of the game when England required five runs to win. The umpire was Ian Robinson, of Zimbabwe, who did not have anything like as distinguished a match as the New Zealand official Steve Dunn.
Atherton (who would also remember that Robinson was at the bowler's end when Courtney Walsh worked him over in the 1994 Jamaica Test without any official warning) now has a ticklish problem when he submits his captain's report on the umpiring in Bulawayo.
Robinson is chief administrator for Zimbabwean cricket, and Atherton's less than complimentary observations on Robinson will go straight to, er, Robinson.
Official Correction (First Test, Bulawayo).- England second innings: N V Knight run out; D Gough not out.