A timid batting display and another early spray-gun bowling performancecondemned Zimbabwe to another defeat at the hands of South Africa, giving the tourists a clean sweep of the three-match one-day series
John Ward30-Sep-2001A timid batting display and another early spray-gun bowling performancecondemned Zimbabwe to another defeat at the hands of South Africa, giving the tourists a clean sweep of the three-match one-day series. This timeit was by six wickets, although it might have been much worse were it notfor two controversial umpiring decisions.Same weather, same type of pitch, same Zimbabwean team, but the Zimbabweans wentinto this match hoping it would not be the same cricket. They have playedwell below their best throughout this tour, especially in the bowlingdepartment, and only in the Bulawayo Test were able as a team to cause theSouth Africans any trouble.Two-nil down and in this ‘dead match’ of theone-day series, they had a last chance to give the tourists something toremember them by.Remarkably, Zimbabwe made no changes to their losing team when they couldwell have given some youngsters experience or gambled on the pace of HenryOlonga, bowling well in the nets, or brought in a specialist spinner on awearing pitch.South Africa did take that opportunity, bringing in BoetaDippenaar, Justin Ontong and Justin Kemp in place of Gary Kirsten, Andre Neland Makhaya Ntini.Zimbabwe won the toss for the first time and decided to bat, which couldv haveproven to be an advantage on a slow pitch that was wearing the day before.Whether they would be able to take advantage of it was another matter.Alistair Campbell went in with his third opening partner in as many matches,Hamilton Masakadza, who is still struggling in one-day cricket. He made 5before being trapped lbw by Justin Kemp, who opened the bowling with ShaunPollock.Campbell and Stuart Carlisle then became bogged down against good bowlingand superb fielding, and after 13 overs the score was only 25, with Pollockconceding just nine runs off six overs.Then the arrival of thesecond-string bowlers enabled the batsmen to score a little more freely.The fifty came up in the 20th over, and Campbell was finally beginning toopen up when Claude Henderson bowled him through the gate for 40 off 77balls in the 24th over; Zimbabwe 92 for three.Andy Flower, under pressure to score quickly, scored only 4 before he triedto hit Henderson over the top and was well caught overhead by the leapingHerschelle Gibbs at midwicket.Carlisle finally reached his fifty off 96balls, but then holed out to long-off off Ontong for 51. Zimbabwewere now a mere 118 for four in the 38th over.Dion Ebrahim and Grant Flower tried to make up for lost time, but with mixedresults and many swings and misses. Ebrahim was eventually run out for 41attempting a desperate second, with the score 172 for five in the 48th over.The fielder was Dippenaar, who had a fine day on the boundary andfinished it by catching Grant Flower off the final ball of the innings for27. The total was only 184 for six wickets.Zimbabwe’s bowling opened in a way sadly appropriate to the way they hadperformed throughout the tour: two leg-side wides by Travis Friend, followedby five more runs in the opening over, and 17 runs in his second over asDippenaar and Gibbs enjoyed themselves.By way of contrast, Gary Brent at the other end found line and length fromthe start, but Mluleki Nkala was little better than Friend at first,conceding 15 runs in his first over as the batsmen happily plunderedeverything astray. The fifty came up in the sixth over, but then Nkalasettled down and the batsmen had to work harder.Then came two controversial lbw decisions by umpire Mumtiaz Esat. Gibbsfell controversially for 39, well down the pitch, while the tall Kemp(1) was given his marching orders when struck by a rising ball above theroll of the pad, both to Nkala. Then Dippenaar (22) was also given out lbw,this time to Brent and adjudged by Graeme Evans, but the television appearedto confirm this decision as probably correct.Neil McKenzie and Justin Ontong dug in grimly, while Brent finished anexcellent ten overs on the trot with one for 22. Ontong found his fluencyfirst and hit Whittall for a huge six over the sightscreen, but on 32 hit areturn catch to Grant Flower. McKenzie passed 50 and hit 13 in the 41stover, bowled by Strang, to win the match and complete a clean sweep forSouth Africa in the series. He finished with 69 and Mark Boucher with 15.