Grant Flower spoke to CricInfo about a few aspects of the recent Zimbabwean overseas tour and about the Logan Cup match this last weekend between Mashonaland A and Mashonaland, having been appointed captain of the latter.

After another failure at the top of the batting order in the First Test against India in Delhi, Grant moved down the order for the Nagpur Test for the first time in his international career. He responded with a fine century, a little chancy at times but full of positive strokeplay. Could he account for the transformation, which presumably was more mental than anything?

"The ball was not moving around as much as it was no longer a new ball," he answered. "So I just tried to be more positive. I think I was a bit negative going into the First Test match, as I had been out of form. I just thought, 'There's no point in hanging around any more; there's only one way of getting yourself out of a rut and that's to play some shots.' Down the order it helps because you can afford to play your shots."

How does he see his Test future: back to opening, or staying down the order? "I'm not too sure because it's not up to me. But I'm not sure I haven't reached the stage of my career when it would be good to have a change and bat down the order, give someone else a chance at the top."

Grant hasn't played another Test yet because of a hand injury in New Zealand that put him out of the Test match there. "It happened in the warm-up game against Canterbury," he explains. "There was a run-out chance and I was behind the stumps. The ball was going to hit the stumps and I just went to catch it before it hit. It was one of those awkward situations and it just hit me right on the end of my finger."

Did it affect him in Australia? "I didn't have any warm-up games going into my first World Series match, so my preparation was very limited. I'd had three-and-a-half weeks off, with not much cricket at all. It's a confidence thing really, but I gave myself a bit of a chance and got fifty in the first game. It went all right after that. It didn't affect my batting at all, just my fielding. I just had to try and stay out of trouble and get the ball right in the middle of the hands. I have to watch the ball a bit more carefully, so it probably doesn't do me any harm in the long run."

Back in Zimbabwe, Grant missed the first Logan Cup match: was that just a rest, or because of his hand? "It was a rest, to give my finger a bit more time to recover," he says. "I don't think it will ever be 100%, but batting-wise it's fine. It's more fielding, or when I'm bowling and get return catches or the ball along the ground. So I've just got to be careful."

Grant was asked just before the first Logan Cup match began to captain the Mashonaland side. It is not his first experience of captaincy, as he spent several seasons captaining the Mashonaland Under-23 or Young Mashonaland teams in the early days of the first-class Logan Cup competition. Trevor Penney took over as caretaker captain in the first match before Grant returned for last weekend's fixture against the Mashonaland A team.

LOGAN CUP MATCH:

MASHONALAND 171 (Paul Strang 48; Andy Blignaut 4/44) and 66/5 dec (David Mutendera 3/22). MASHONALAND A forfeited first innings and 122 (Dion Ebrahim 53; Paul Strang 4/36). Mashonaland won by 115 runs.

In very wet conditions, the pitch helped the bowlers throughout the match. The second day's play was completely washed out. Grant takes up the story:

We lost the toss and obviously we were inserted on a pretty lively pitch. They bowled well, and luckily for us Paul Strang got 48 and Don Campbell (37) batted really well with him. Without them we would have been in a heap of trouble, but we got a decent score in the circumstances. A slow outfield doesn't make for very entertaining cricket. We were six down for 46 at one stage, with some good bowling and some bad shots. Batsman were not really moving their feet; on a pitch that's doing a bit it's imperative you get your feet apart and try to get to the pitch to nullify the movement.

Our guys probably lacked a bit of practice; we'd had a few weeks off, which is right, I think. We can get mentally stale, and physically our bodies need a rest. So a lot of the guys went into the match without any practice for three weeks or so. This was largely because of the wet conditions generally: we can't practice anywhere in Zimbabwe at the moment because the facilities are so bad, apart from the Academy. So it doesn't help anyone's cricket, the national players or the club players. That's one of the problems we've got in Zimbabwe cricket.

It's up to the groundsmen, and really the hierarchy. They need to put enough money in place to pay for proper groundsmen to do the job, and for them to get the proper equipment to maintain those grounds. You need to get people who know what they're doing, and you need to get the fields cut so we can have some entertaining cricket. It's hard with all the rain, but as you can see today, here at Harare Sports Club, the weather is good but nothing is being cut.

On the third morning of the match they forfeited their first innings to make a game of it. I asked Everton what they wanted to do: obviously there was a chance of their forfeiting their innings and ourselves setting them a total to chase. I think it would be in the best interests of Zimbabwe cricket just to make a game of it and to put a bit of pressure of the team. At first they weren't interested; they were concerned about whether there was a final to the competition or just an outright winner of the league [the latter is the case this season], but I think they were just a bit reluctant to chase on that sort of pitch. But obviously it was in both sides favour to try and force a result. When days are limited by rain, you've got to do something.

Then they changed their minds and we set them a target. We just had a general agreement: he asked me if we would set them a reasonable target, and I said we would. We set them 235 in 80 overs, I think it was, and I think that was reasonable. It was always going to be hard on that outfield, but the pitch flattened out a bit and they just had to get some partnerships together, but they never quite got going.

Dion Ebrahim got 53 and played very well; he has a bit of guts about him, but none of the other guys really got in and batted around him. I think Eddo Brandes bowled really well, a very good spell, one of the best I've seen him bowl. But I think he has pulled a quadricep in his leg and won't be playing in the next match. Gus Mackay backed him up well, with a very steady spell, and then Paul Strang came through. It looks like he's got it back, which is going to be good for Zimbabwe cricket.

For Mashonaland A, I thought Andy Blignaut bowled really well, but they took him off at one stage in the first innings when he had just taken three wickets in a row. I think they lost their grip on the game there. They have quite a good seam attack, but just lack a bit of experience, especially in the batting.

I heard a bit about the complaints concerning Mashonaland players' behaviour last season. Obviously some guys can get a bit carried away, but it is part of the game to a certain degree. In this game there wasn't much at all. The thing about Zimbabwean cricket is that everyone knows each other so well. In a certain way it lends itself to a bit of sledging, but no one ever gets too carried away, because everyone is really good friends. It's not like competitions anywhere else in the world where they meet each other probably once a month, if that, whereas here the main players meet each other almost every day. So I don't think anyone should ever get carried away in this small society.

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