ADRIAN MILEDGE, Nottingham | Tuesday 10.00am.
ZIMBABWE, destroyed by England in the first Test, finished the second Test on Monday with a spring in their step as the rain-hit game at Trent Bridge ended in a draw.
England won the series 1-0. But after Murray Goodwin had restored some Zimbabwe pride following their heavy defeat at Lord’s by posting an unbeaten 148, the bowlers followed suit by dismissing England in their second innings for 147.
Their chance to do so came as a surprise, following skipper Andy Flower’s bold declaration of the first innings at 285 for four.
That gave England a lead of 89 but it looked a fragile one when their reply stood at 44 for four and later 110 for seven.
Once again England were indebted to Michael Atherton who made 34. He scored an impressive 136 in the first innings.
Guy Whittall, who took three for 14, was the pick of the tourists’ attack.
His third wicket finished England’s innings and left Zimbabwe, needing 237 for an improbable victory, to play out the last five overs to close on 25 for one.
If Flower had had his way, he would have declared shortly before the end of play on Sunday.
”I wanted to bowl four overs or so at England on Sunday evening but was stopped by bad light,” he said.
”I felt they might be vulnerable, especially as some of their batsmen had been out cheaply in the first innings and might have been lacking in confidence.
He added: ”Actually winning the game from there was a tall order. But what we achieved with both the bat and the ball in this game has gone a long way towards putting right what went wrong at Lord’s.
”Our changing room is now a lot more pleasant place to be in and I feel we’ve started an upward trend in readiness for the one-day series.”
Flower’s thinking behind the declaration proved spot on.
Teenage paceman Mlukeki Nkala with figures of two for 22 send back Mark Ramprakash (4) and Nasser Hussain for a duck before Heath Streak (2/13) bowled Nick Knight (6) and England were struggling at 12 for three.
England’s lead looked even less substantial after the dismissals of Alec Stewart (15), Andy Flintoff (16), Graeme Hick (30) and Chris Schofield (10) left them 110 for seven.
England skipper Hussain admitted his side had under-achieved. ”We didn’t play as well as we could so our performance wasn’t acceptable,” he said. ”But you’ve got to give them credit. They batted and bowled really well.
”In fact, they probably did better in both than we did. That shows that, after Lord’s, we’re not as consistent as we should be and there’s plenty of room for improvement.” — Reuters