Stuart Carlisle continues his talk with John Ward about Zimbabwe's recently concluded extended tour.

Zimbabwe went into the Carlton and United Series in Australia knowing that basically it would be a contest between themselves and West Indies to play Australia in the final. Having beaten West Indies in three matches out of three in a similar triangular tournament in England a few months earlier, Zimbabwe knew they could do the job and have the better of West Indies in the four matches between the sides in this tournament. But they discovered there is a big difference between knowing they can do it and actually doing it.

Right from the start Zimbabwe appeared to show they had a problem or two to sort out, even after beating New Zealand. "We played a warm-up game against a country side which had a couple of state players," says Stuart. "Even that cricket was very hard. We didn't play well at all. I'm not sure how much the guys' minds were switched on to that warm-up game. We should have won the game – it's still important cricket."

While Australia was steamrollering all opposition and Zimbabwe knew they were likely to suffer the same fate at their hands as West Indies were doing, it was expected that the matches between the two weaker teams would be the most exciting. And so, generally, it proved, with the first encounter, at Brisbane, the closest of all. They weren't to know it then, but this match effectively decided the finalist.

Zimbabwe scored 240 batting first, Alistair Campbell leading the way with 81. West Indies needed two runs to win in the final over with two wickets left, and promptly lost another wicket before scrambling the final runs. The West Indian hero was Ricardo Powell, whose 83 not out was crucial. He hit the winning runs, but Stuart feels some measure of guilt about what might have been. Earlier Powell had been stranded in the middle of the pitch when he fielded the ball but, with nobody backing up at the bowler's end, he hesitated in the knowledge that unless he hit the stumps direct there would be costly overthrows. Powell just scraped home.

"I know it's hard to blame anyone," he says, "but I might have been at fault when I missed that run-out. Nagamootoo knocked a ball to midwicket and I read it very quickly, so I ran on from square leg and picked it up. Powell had run three-quarters of the way down the pitch. I could have thrown at the stumps, maybe, but when I picked the ball up I waited for Travis Friend to get back to the stumps, which is what we have been taught, to hold back if the batsman is far down the pitch. Maybe Travis could have got round the stumps quicker – I don't know – but at the end of the day we missed an opportunity there that could have changed the game. I hesitated with my underarm throw, and Powell dived back, and by a fraction of a second just got back into the crease. There was a third-umpire call and it went to the benefit of the batsman. Travis Friend caught the ball but I don't think his positioning was good. It's hard to blame him because he's 19 years old, but I think these are things that he can learn.

"But it's the good old thing about cricket – I could have thrown at the stumps and missed, same result. You can't blame it all on that situation, but I just believe it could have changed the game. We had dropped catches again, misfields, runs given away in the outfield – we didn't field well, and some of out batsmen could have gone on and made bigger scores. So it was just one of those things. But it was sad that we lost there, because the West Indies were down and it would have been good if we had gone one-nil up instead of them going one-nil up.

The next match against West Indies was in Sydney, and Zimbabwe seemed to have thrown it all away when they subsided for a mere 138 after being put in to bat. "We came back really hard when we had nothing to lose," Stuart says. "The pitch was not a good one, even though the Australian commentators were saying it was a great batting pitch. Yes, there may have been some bad shots by the West Indies but the ball was moving around. We did have three or four of our top batsmen out through balls bouncing up and hitting the gloves, and they bowled well to get us out for 138.

"Then we had some great bowling, but more importantly we had some great catching. We all took a couple of good catches in the slips" – Stuart took three, Alistair Campbell two – "and the know the old saying of how catches win matches. It was a fantastic game, actually, and having the West Indies at 25 for seven at one stage was quite amazing. Jimmy Adams and Nixon McLean tried to make a little comeback. I think Nixon McLean played the right way – he hit out and that was probably the only hope. We were one-all at that stage.

"We knew throughout the series that the Australians were playing well and were a very tough side to beat. They are definitely in my books the best side in the world at the moment. That's not to say you can't beat them. I think the West Indies knew that their only chance was to beat us and our chance to get to the finals was to beat them. But there's no way we approached the Australian games like that; we approached the games very positively, and you'll know by the results that we had some very good, competitive games against Australia.

"We got some good scores against Australia and I think our batsmen batted very well. We struggled a bit in our bowling, if you're only bowling at about 120 kilometres an hour, compared to their top bowlers who are bowling at more than 140. Our fastest bowler is Heath Streak who was bowling at 128 to 130, so we were lacking a bit of speed. Some may say it's not so much the pace, but when you're bowling to top-class batsmen it just gives them that bit extra time to run down and hit you, make you vary your length, so it was harder for our bowlers. They tried very hard, obviously, so it was a very good learning point on their behalf as well."

The third West Indian match was lost, with Zimbabwe playing well below standard, and all came down to the final match against them at Perth. West Indies were a victory ahead but Zimbabwe had a much better run rate, so it was a case of `winner take all'. It was a controversial match that began with Zimbabwe bowling and fielding brilliantly to give themselves the advantage, and then throwing it away with a dismal batting performance.

The first controversy of the match occurred when the West Indian openers tried to scuttle through for a quick single on the leg side, only for bowler Heath Streak, trying to field the ball, accidentally to obstruct non-striker Sherwin Campbell, who came to a sudden halt in mid-pitch and was run out without even attempting to get home. My view was that I felt Zimbabwe had fallen short of the highest standards of sportsmanship by taking advantage of an unintentional obstruction, although Campbell had done himself no favours by failing even to attempt to make his ground.

"As you say, he didn't attempt to make his ground, and that was the whole issue," says Stuart. "We would probably have let him go had he fallen into Heath Streak and then tried, made an attempt to get to the other side. But no one in world cricket that I know can run into a player and then just stop and turn around. Even Michael Holding said that, that you have to make an effort. Now if Sherwin Campbell had made an effort and tried to drive in and we still ran him out, there's no doubt in my mind that Heath Streak would have turn round and said, `Okay, we'll cancel that'. But it's a tough game out there, it's an important game and it's getting harder and more competitive, and you can't afford to be Mr Nice Guy and say, `Okay, you can carry on batting.' I know there are certain ethics in cricket that are still standing and should always stand, but if you don't make an effort to get to the other side how can we turn around and say that's all right?" I still don't agree, but the lack of feeling against Zimbabwe over this incident obviously shows that Campbell forfeited most of his potential sympathy.

Only a few minutes later the other opener Daren Ganga mistimed a stroke that was taken by Streak himself diving at mid-on, only yards from umpire Daryl Hair. Yet Hair claimed he was unsighted and called on the third umpire for a decision, only for that official to rule it not out. Heath has a reputation as a fine sportsman who would never claim a catch unless he was certain he took it, but the television commentators at the time suggested that Heath may have indicated that he was not altogether sure he had taken the catch cleanly. I asked Stuart if this was correct.

"I believe Heath said it was clean," Stuart confirmed, "and he is an honest guy. I think Heath would have said, `No, no' if it wasn't, and he's captain of Zimbabwe. As the commentators said [with a not-out decision], they're actually saying he's cheating now. He did definitely take the catch, and if you watch it on TV – and this is going back to the third umpire again - I still don't understand how he couldn't give that out, because if you watch that from behind you can see his hands go right under. But, going further into technology, who don't they use the magnifying glass more?"

I also noted that, on the replays, umpire Hair did not even appear to be looking at Streak when the catch was taken; he seemed rather to be facing midwicket as he moved across to take his place on the leg side by the popping crease to watch for a possible run-out. "Well, that's what I can't understand," says Stuart. "He was six metres away from the ball. Surely he could see that."

Defeat against the West Indies in that match doomed Zimbabwe to an early flight home, having won once and lost three times against them. On the other hand, Zimbabwe did far better in their matches against Australia than did the West Indies.

Australia won all their home matches, five Tests and ten one-day internationals, during that season, but it was only in this final match against Zimbabwe that any team succeeded in even coming close. In a thrilling run-chase, Zimbabwe finally finished just one run short of the Australian total, and that was thanks largely to a record fourth-wicket partnership of 187 between Stuart and Grant Flower, when chasing 303.

For much of their time together, the pair failed to keep up with the required run rate, and after about 42 overs the team needed to score at almost ten an over to win. Then, it appeared, twelfth man Trevor Madondo came out with a message for the batsmen, who immediately opened up and began to challenge that daunting run rate. Had they stayed together Zimbabwe would probably have won, but if the stand was broken then the new batsmen would have found it almost impossible to keep up with such a rate. But it had appeared that Zimbabwe at first had decided they could not win but they might achieve respectability and were aiming for that. Then, when they decided they could win, they went for it, but it was just too late. Stuart, however, says it was not quite like that.

"Grant and I decided to build a partnership, as we had nothing to lose," he says. "At first we had to keep the urgency up and score between five and six an over. In the early part of our innings after we lost two early wickets, we decided we would try to get to 250 or 260 and bat as if that was our target. Then if we put up a big partnership we would see what happened. But when we were about 150 for three we started thinking we could get about six or seven an over. We tried not to panic but just to keep the rate going.

"When the score was about 200 we had two or three really good overs and thought we would go for it. Then I tried to lift a ball over Mark Waugh at cover and was caught." This brilliant catch changed the game. Shortly afterwards Grant Flower was run out – "he admitted he shouldn't have gone for the run." Heath Streak also fell to a brilliant return catch by Ian Harvey and, despite the incredible feat of Doug Marillier in scoring 12 runs off five balls from McGrath's final over, Zimbabwe just fell short.

One thing that puzzled me was that big-hitter Gus Mackay was not sent in instead of Dirk Viljoen. Despite Gus' inexperience at this level, just one big hit from him might have swung the match. Stuart didn't know why this was not done. "Everybody knows his big hits," he says. "It may have been a little tactical error."

Stuart is full of praise for Mackay's attitude on what was his first full international tour and sadly may also be his last, as he did not do very well with the ball, did not have a chance with the bat and is aged 33. "Gus would bowl really well in the nets; he would bowl more than anyone else," Stuart says. "He's a fighter and he enjoys his cricket. And I know he'll keep on going."

Zimbabwe have built up an enviable reputation as a superb fielding side, but they did not show Australia their best in this regard. Failures in the first West Indian match alone were enough eventually to knock Zimbabwe out of the finals. "I think one of the biggest problems for us was our fielding," Stuart admits. "We're a side that a lot of the time can contain, and either chase runs and win or can set big totals and try and contain. We rely on our catches and getting run-outs, and that's how we've won our games in the past. And we weren't doing that. It led to a bit of inconsistency in our performances."

Stuart is full of praise for the way the Zimbabwean team were treated and the way the tournament was organized. "We stayed in some really good hotels and were looked after very well," he says. "Everything was run efficiently." Talking about the warm-up game that Zimbabwe lost against a country team, he says, "We went out to see the Don Bradman Museum; every touring team goes out there into the countryside and it's quite nice to take a break.

"I'd like to think we all learned a lot about being very positive, in terms of our batting and even our bowling, in terms of being more aggressive, more competitive, because Australians are like that. You can't get away with a bad ball in Australia, and watching guys like Steve Waugh and Mark Waugh – the way he plays, he almost caresses the ball around until he gets to a big score, while Steve comes in with a very aggressive approach from ball one. It's interesting the way they play differently, their different grips and technique – it's a great learning curve, I think.

"They had some great opening partnerships with Adam Gilchrist and Darren Lehmann in particular playing well. Adam Gilchrist took some unbelievable catches as a wicket-keeper. Michael Bevan probably wasn't as good as he has been in the past, but he still got that odd fifty and played an important innings in the middle. Andrew Symonds is a very big guy who can hit the ball very hard. But, you know, he got that 60 runs off 47 balls in Hobart, but we had a controversial first ball – off the gloves. We got a very competitive 280 and they send Andrew Symonds in first. He could have been out first ball; they could have been one down and they wouldn't have got that fast start that they did."

There was one aspect of the Australian tour that Stuart, and the Zimbabwean team as a whole, were unhappy about. "We had some unfortunate incidents and this leads me to talk about some of the umpiring that occurred in Australia," he said. "Not just myself, but a lot of the Zimbabwe team and a lot of the public, I'm sure, and I hear the West Indian team have also been going on about it. We had some very unfortunate decisions which could have changed the game. We understand there are always going to be some bad decisions. I'm not saying we alone had poor decisions, but it's hard to win games. It's been said by some of the top commentators in the world at the moment that the umpiring is not up to standard. Why should players, especially like Alistair Campbell, be fined money all the time for complaining, for bringing the game into disrepute, and the umpires get off scot-free? I just think that's unfair.

"All I want to say is that it was sad because we had a World Series, sides trying to get into the finals, trying to do well – the same goes for all three teams – and to have too many bad decisions can affect the game of cricket. We had some games certainly where maybe they could have referred more often to the third umpire. You get a little inside edge on to your pad or you a ball off the gloves – I think those are all decisions that can and should go to the third umpire. I know people are saying that maybe we are using technology too much, and that is why they are having a captains' meeting in Sydney in a few days' time."

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