Zimbabwe rediscovered the tough, uncompromising street-wisdom thatcharacterizes their best cricket - even when they lose - by batting for most of the third day and keeping South Africa on their feet for 178 overs.

It was slow and it wasn't often pretty but there was method in the maddening crawl as Shaun Pollock and his team spent longer and longer sitting down between overs and stretching hamstrings and thighs as their patience was stretched close to breaking point.

There was also an element of bloody-minded revenge after a private feeling that they had been 'duped' during the first Test in Harare.

Heath Streak maintained overly attacking fields in the capital city, on a flat pitch, in an effort to refute criticism that Zimbabwe had a tendency to play negative cricket. South Africa amassed 600-3 before tea on the second day and Streak saw his attack slaughtered.

When Zimbabwe replied it took Shaun Pollock all of 45 minutes to begin stripping the slip cordon and packing the covers, quickly reducing the Zimbabwe innings to a crawl and do nothing for the match as a spectacle. So much for positive cricket, the Zimbabweans believed.

Naivety was not likely to strike again in Bulawayo. The longer the innings lasted, the more patient the batsmen became. Pollock steadfastly stuck to his strangle field placings while Stuart Carlisle was encouraged all the way by the batsmen at the other end as he stone-walled the South African attack for four and a half hours of largely tedious combat.

The plan, of course, was for the exhausted and irritable South Africans to lose a couple of wickets in the final 45 minutes of the day, which did not happen. If it had, the context of the match might be looking very different. Then again, if Streak had not attempted to play positive cricket in Harare, the series might be looking quite different.

Utterly reliable but equally slow batting wickets tend to produce long spells of tedium until either the bowlers or the batsmen lose patience and crack. On a tiring day elongated by the addition of an extra hour, neither did. South Africa are very unlikely to crack on day four either, but at least the Zimbabweans know they have found their teeth again and are unlikely to be rolled over in limp fashion as they were last week.

Neil Manthorp is a leading freelance writer in South Africa and a director of the sports news agency MWP Media Sport.

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