THIS WEATHER is infuriating. It is the wet season in Zimbabwe and it is not letting us down. As I write, at 4pm in the afternoon, alarming lightning illuminates the deep, grey and rain-filled sky while loud thunder, that thunder with the sharper cracks that make people giggle nervously as they remark how close it sounds, echoes around us at the Harare Sports Club.

The rain is falling in thick straight lines, sometimes to enlarge the lake that was the outfield and other times, when caught by bursts of a stiff breeze, at acute angles and into the faces of the rushing, splashing spectators. An hour ago we were burnt by the sunshine, now we are soaked from the sky.

Not that it means that we will miss much. The play today has been dull, which is partly because the groggy pitch and the thick, slow outfield offer nothing for attractive cricket and partly because there are not many attractive cricketers on view.

A Compton would have made something of the conditions, or a Botham, but not many ordinary mortals, not even a Gower for instance, who is sitting a yard to my right and saying he would have hated to have batted on such a pitch.

Actually I am not certain the pitch is quite so ghastly as everyone says. The point, I suspect, is that the players are terrified of taking a risk. Even David Houghton, who when at his best as a batsman is touched by something out of the ordinary - I once watched him outclass Graeme Hick in single-wicket competition has been mute in the Zimbabwe innings this afternoon.

Zimbabwe, you see, have got themselves into a position where they should win, which is a responsibility that weighs heavy if it is not a habit. They saw England lose wickets through indiscreet attacking strokes so they have resolved to bore the pants off everyone in search of an unassailable lead.

Then to bowl England out again they will depend upon a talented leg-spinner, Paul Strang, to make good use of a disintegrating pitch. Zimbabwe, and Houghton particularly, would like to bat more aggressively but they do not dare lest they blow their advantage. In utter contrast England have got themselves out of a position where they should win. They should win because one-onone, they are the better cricketers and though they know it they have forgotten how to apply it.

This situation frightens them because losing means ridicule and since losing is on the cards they have decided to eliminate risk. They are looking for the discipline that last night they were told they lacked and if this means a war of attrition, the spreading of the troops and the wait for the enemy to err, so be it.

The problem for everyone is that there is a long time left in this match so neither side need really make a move. From this turgid play tactics have become stalemate.

The other things I wonder, as Gower, yes Gower would you believe, helps to batten down the hatches which may keep the water from our ankles, is what on earth England are doing here in Zimbabwe in the rainy season anyway.

Oh, and here in a holiday season too when the cities have emptied for the peace of the country. In the old days, when Rhodesia played in the South African Currie Cup competition they never played at home at Christmas or the New Year, they played in Durban or Port Elizabeth or Cape Town.

And while still wondering, why could this tour not have started 10 days earlier and finished 10 days earlier so that the England team could be at home for Christmas with their families, who are not allowed to travel with them?

That way they could have had a break from this strangely tricky tour and left for New Zealand in the New Year, from home not from Harare, where they are wet and, for the past day or so, in the second Test without their wits.