By John Ward

Cricket traditionally acts as a magnet, attracting rain from all quarters during play and often a day or two in advance as well. Last weekend, remarkably, Bulawayo and even Harare remained dry while large areas of the rest of the country enjoyed floods.

This enabled all three Logan Cup matches to be played without interruption, and all three brought results, although the Bulawayo result only came about courtesy of a serious Midlands collapse after a magnificent batting performance first time round. All credit to Matabeleland for their unexpected victory after taking such a hammering on the first day, although not quite in the class of India’s great victory over Australia. [More]

INTERVIEWS

Gary Brent: Mashonaland v Manicaland

Anybody remember Gary Brent? Last season a Test player, this season unable to win a place in the Zimbabwe Board XI, and seemingly ignored by the selectors. He did suffer a temporary decline in form, but is now producing the goods again - and is still forgotten by the selectors. He was the top wicket-taker in the recent Logan Cup match, playing for Manicaland against Mashonaland. He talks to CricInfo about that match, and about his last year.

The tour of England was not a bad tour for me. Obviously I did not do as well as I had hoped, and I was very disappointed not to play in the one-day final against England. I learnt a lot, and my batting has definitely come along. I did quite a lot of work on it over there and I’m still working on it now. Hopefully in the next couple of weeks we’ll see the fruit of that. [More]

Trevor Gripper: maiden first-class century

It hasn’t been a great season for me. I started off pretty well in the club scene: I got a couple of eighties and a lot of forties and thirties, but then I struggled. That’s how cricket goes sometimes: you go through a lean spell and you can’t get a run. But hopefully this innings has changed it all. [More]

Tatenda Taibu: Test 'keeper in waiting
It is as certain as anything in cricket can be that Tatenda Taibu will soon take over as Zimbabwe’s wicket-keeper. But at present he has chosen to cool his heels studying for his A-levels at Churchill High School in Harare, a year after touring West Indies and England with the national side. He talks to CricInfo about his progress. "I enjoyed West Indies, especially Jamaica, since the people there are very friendly. You can talk to them anytime, and they will come up to you and just start talking. The first few days I had trouble catching their accent, which was quite tricky. There are a lot of races there: the Chinese, the French, black and white, every race, and I found that very unusual." [More]

BIOGRAPHY

Brighton Watambwa
Brighton Watambwa is one of Zimbabwe’s young black pace bowlers who has improved steadily until he made a real impact in the Board XI matches in the UCBSA Bowl Competition during the 2000/01 season. Tall and gangling, he generates a good pace and has developed his skills to the point where he is now able to trouble the top batsmen. [More]

Andre Neethling
Andre Neethling owes his interest in cricket to an unusual set of circumstances. He has no family background in the game, but his parents divorced when he was about two years old, and shortly after that his mother went out for a while with a man named Kevin Walters. Mr Walters used to play cricket with Andre in the back garden when he was very young, and this started an interest that never died, even when they parted. [More]

Justin Lewis
Justin Lewis is one of several promising young players to emerge from the revitalized cricketing area of the Midlands recently. He is a left-arm medium-paced bowler who played for the province at the age of 17 in the Logan Cup competition of 1999/2000, and then won a place in the CFX Academy for 2001. [More]

Matabeleland v Manicaland

Report by Derrick Townshend

The two Mashonaland teams meet at Harare Sports Club in their Logan Cup 'derby' match. The Mashonaland A side, which remains unchanged from the team that played Matabeleland the weekend before last, is technically the home team.

Mashonaland on the other hand make four changes, as their international players are available again. Recent captain Trevor Penney, who only played due to the extreme difficulty the selectors had in finding enough quality players, reverts to his position as coach of Mashonaland A and will not be playing. He will be replaced by Grant Flower, who takes over at captain. [More]

Matabeleland v Midlands
by Derrick Townshend
After six Logan Cup matches without a victory, Matabeleland finally came good with a four-wicket victory over Midlands at BAC over the weekend. Despite recent weather reports of heavy rain due to a cyclone in the Mozambique Channel, the weather remained fine and hot and an entertaining match could be played.

Matabeleland retained the same team from the previous match with both Streak and Rennie unavailable. Midlands won the toss and decided to bat. They were soon struggling at 64 for three, but then a fine partnership of 176 in 149 minutes between former Test player Craig Wishart and the most recent debutant Doug Marillier steadied Midlands who eventually declared at 380 for four. [More]

Manicaland v Mashonaland
By Nigel Fleming
Last weekend saw Manicaland run the Mashonaland senior team perilously close to defeat at Harare Sports Club during their second Logan Cup fixture of the season. The Mashonaland side, which contained eight past or present Test players, was supposed to have travelled to Mutare for this fixture, but a decision was made early in the week to move the game to Harare given the state of the Mutare ground, its inadequate pitch protection and the weather.

A new and hastily prepared pitch was readied at the Harare Test venue and both captains knew from the outset it would deteriorate more the longer the game progressed. Mark Burmester was happy to be put in, not relishing fourth use of this minefield-in-waiting. [More]

SCHOOLS

St George's College
by Mike Nash (Coach/Manager)
U14 v St John's U14, 3rd February 2001
Fielding first, we were not at our best and allowed St John's to get to 257/6 by lunchtime, when they declared having faced 67 overs. Stuart Torr (2/28) and Ryan Higgins (2/27) were our most successful bowlers and catches were held - one each by Tristan Holland and Jerry Masaraure, and by Daniel Peens (two), wicket-keeper, who also made a stumping, but three catches which should have been taken were put down… Hold your catches, win your matches! A feature of the St John's innings was the excellent 132 of Sean Durrad. [More]

STATISTICS

Grant Flower in One-Day Internationals [More]

LETTERS

WHAT A GREAT TEAM!

To Heath and ALL the players, you guys are great!

What great ambassadors! Not only for Zim but for the game of cricket. Australians as role models - take a hike - not even close. Planets apart! Just do one thing for me, guys - believe in your talent, believe in your abilities, believe you can WIN!! Have a well-deserved rest.

Chris Herdon, (Malaysia)