OWN CORRESPONDENT, London | Thursday 11.30am
ZIMABABWE shivered under the grey skies at Canterbury on Wednesday, leaving cold-victim Andy Flower under the weather with the tourists’ poor batting display.
With eight days of cricket left before the first Test against England at Lord’s, Zimbabwean captain Flower is concerned about the form of key batsmen Neil Johnson and brother Grant after an under-strength Kent attack bowled them out for 159.
Johnson was dismissed without scoring while Grant Flower managed just 10 runs, both falling to four-wicket seamer David Masters on his first-class debut.
Zimbabwe would have fared even worse had tailenders Heath Streak and Mluleki Nkala not contributed 47 between them.
It was Johnson’s fourth duck in six innings, stretching back to the recent West Indies tour, and he has still to score a run so far in England, while Grant Flower recorded a zero in the opening match against Hampshire.
Johnson, one of the world’s top one-day players, struck Masters to mid-off and Flower was taken at slip by Indian Test star Rahul Dravid off Masters, bowling commendably straight and using a good slower ball.
Andy Flower, one of five players in the squad suffering with colds, sat out the match but said: “Those two have got to get some runs. We batted very poorly, I’m very disappointed. The younger players showed the older players how to play.”
“If you look at the stats, Grant’s had a bad run for a little while. They are two key batsmen, we have tended to do well when Grant scores runs. A very solid professional, people build around him, so he’s a very important cog in our wheel and we need to get him right for the Test.
“And there’s nothing you can do about the weather. We’ve come off playing a lot of cricket, so I’m not too worried about it.” — AFP