Sheffield Cricket Lovers' Society Year Book 2022

6 Zimbabwe became the third country awarded Test match status a er the end of WW2, and their rst visit was in 2000. Apart from a win and a draw in the Tests, nine other rst class matches took place (2 wins, 2 losses and 5 draws). However, two Test matches had been played between the countries in 1996-97 in Zimbabwe, both ending in draws. Prior to Zimbabwe achieving independence in 1980 its name had been Southern Rhodesia. My records show that the last tour England made to South Africa - prior to the apartheid lockdown - was in 1964-65; a 5 match series ended with 4 draws following a single victory for England in Durban. At the start of that tour a single match was played from 24-27 October against Rhodesia in Salisbury (now Harare), the last time an England team would play in the country bearing that name. England won by 5 wickets and weren’t to know its ensuing signi cance. e Rhodesian team included three players who would go on to play for South Africa, namely DB and AJ Pithey and the great Colin Bland, one of the best elders the game has ever seen. Bland and AJP played in all ve Test matches. Back to Zimbabwe, their rst Test at Lord’s started on 18 May 2000, then the earliest Test to be played in an English summer. e occasion proved too much for the Zimbabweans who, in scoring 83 and 123, were defeated by an innings and 229 runs in reply to England’s 415. e second at Trent Bridge proved a happier occasion for Zimbabwe. It ended in a rain a ected draw with Murray Goodwin completing a ne 148 not out for the tourists. In the circumstances the team conducted itself very well on the tour, considering the backdrop of travails back in their home country. Apart from the loss and a draw in two Tests, nine rst class matches were played (2 wins. 2 losses, 5 draws). But it is worth noting, as did Wisden, that all the elements were in place for Zimbabwe’s rst full tour of England to end in tears and acrimony. Civil disorder at home was at its zenith, and several players’ immediate families, living on isolated farms, were in danger. e long-standing pay dispute between the team and the Zimbabwe Cricket Union festered. Zimbabwe toured here again in 2003, a er which their Test cricket hit the bu ers and they have not been here since. ey played a mere six rst class games this time round and to quote Wisden, ‘As their visit represented something of a hot potato, the England and Wales Cricket Board shared a common aim with its team: to get through this awkward little tour without su ering too much embarrassment’. ere were heavy political overtones which are outside the scope of this piece, but two cricketing landmarks occurred during the course of the two Tests, both of which England won by an innings. In the rst, at Lord’s, Jimmy Anderson, aged 20, made his Test debut and took 5-73 in the Zimbabwean rst innings. Amazingly however, his gures were bettered by two other English debutants that summer. I was fortunate to be at the second Test at Chester-le-Street, England’s rst new test venue for 101 years and the 87th in all test cricket. For the rst time since the 1985 Ashes, England had won successive Tests by an innings - a happy omen for future tests there. Unlike the last ground, Bramall Lane, She eld, used in 1902 but never again, the Riverside, at that time, looked as though it was there to stay. Sadly, as I write this piece in September 2020, it has only staged a further ve test matches. is has been due to the lack INTERNATIONAL DEBUTS AT... * SOUTHERN RHODESIA UNTIL 1980.