View Full Version : 1st Test England v Zimbabwe
The 1st Test between England & Zimbabwe has been played and won inside 3 days. Zimbabwe without Andy Flower and Henry Olonga look weak fragile and not much better than Bangladesh.
England 472 (M Buthcer 137, A McGrath 62, M Trescothick 59, A Giles 52)
Zimbabwe 147 (Ebrahim 68, J Anderson 5-73, M Hoggard 3-24)
& 233 (Vermeulen 68, M Butcher 4-60, A McGrath 3-16)
Ashley McGrath has been a find in his debut for England with some quality bowling and a fine batting display. Although no-one is sure on exactly what fight this Zimbabwe team have in them. Main players like Grant Flower and Heath Streak and in the twilight of their careers and not much is coming through the ranks.
England did what they had to and did it well. Demolishing any team inside 3 days is not easy and they achieved that which is a great way to start their international summer season.
crudbucket
25 May 2003, 14:54
Fox advertised this game for weeks and then didn't televise a single ball as far as I know ?
sandeano
25 May 2003, 16:09
Didn't Zimbabwe concede an extraordinary number of extras when bowling to England, around the 60-odd mark? And I believe there were quite a number of byes in that total.
It is not just Flower's batting that is being missed.
red+black
25 May 2003, 19:44
Originally posted by sandeano
Didn't Zimbabwe concede an extraordinary number of extras when bowling to England, around the 60-odd mark?
Extras (b 14, lb 27, w 3, nb 17) 61
Yeah the wicket keepr is about 4 feet tall & looks about 13 (seriously!not about being 4 foot but he only looks like a kid but apparently he's 20).
On Anthony McGrath, I remember a thread on here (maybe on the Gen talk board) a while back about Thommo pronouncing (Glenn)McGrath & rhyming it with path & most people saying that he was a thicko for doing so, so i was a bit surprised that all the English commentators (some with their Oxbridge educations) pronounced it the same way.
As far as I'm concerend you can't even say well it's how the bloke himself pronounces it because really it's an Irish name & should be prononced 'Mgraa' IMO.
He played well but if he's aTest player then so am I.
The best thing was the debut of James Anderson (he who bowled 10 overs for 12 runs against Australia in a 1 dayer earlier this year).
He took 5 wickets in the 1st innigns with the ball swinging like anything in conditions that you only really find in England but what really impressed me was that he bowled out 4 right handed batsmen all with outswingers, so often I see bowlers like Caddick when the balls swinging over here bowling outswinger after outswinger & beating the outside edge loads of times, partly their line & sometimes from being too short & then putting their hands on their hips & looking really hard done by & the commentators saying 'oh he could have had 5 out there today' but Anderson didn't do that, he bowled a full length & really put the ball at leg stump & beat them with the swing to hit off or mid/off it really was impressive & not something I've seen many English bowlers do before & then to furthur show that he thinks a bit differently to the usual crappy robotic English bowlers he bowled over the wicket to the left hander & swung the ball away getting an outside edge with the guy trying to flick it through the onside, he was caught at slip.
So often with the ball swinging the bowlers just bowl inswingers to the lefties & then just 'run' the odd one past them with the angle looking for the edge but rarely do they try to actually swing it away from them going over the wicket, it was just that bit different & it worked let's just hope that he doesn't spend too long bowling with Caddick & having Stewart keep wicket as he'll soon have that individuality knocked out of him & they'll turn him into the same old piece of crap that most of our cricketers are.