Date-stamped : 02 Dec96 - 02:14
Report- Electronic Telegraph

England are sent back to school by Erasmus

By Martin Johnson


IT IS hard to know any more what exactly qualifies as a shock
result when it comes to England's cricket team. There might
conceivably be one or two people left who would raise an eyebrow
over losing to a team whose star performers were a chicken
farmer and a trainee accountant, but far more, most probably,
who would regard holding the Zimbabwe Presidents' XI to a mere
five-wicket margin as a plucky effort.

Yesterday's defeat, with 4.1 overs to spare, certainly won't
cause much of a stir in Australia, where even now, someone is
sitting down to breakfast and asking if there's anything
interesting in the newspaper. "Nah, same old stuff. There's been
a bit of a bushfire in Wagga Wagga, and the Poms lost again."

Nothing, of course, has been left to chance this winter, and
England are fitter than they've ever been. However, as they are
not here to take on Zimbabwe at squat thrusts, this is where the
good news ends. Maybe it's time to think seriously about sending
the wives and girlfriends on tour, and banning the players from
coming out to join them.

England might say that the Zimbabwean team contained nine Test
players, but this is not much of an excuse when only four of
them were full-time professionals. It is now a firmly
established tradition that if an overseas tour equates to a
horse race, England normally have only one leg inside their
jodhpurs by the time they come under starter's orders.

Having been rained-off without managing to complete an innings
in Saturday's pipe-opener against a Districts' XI in Harare
South, England were at least looking to establish a superiority
complex here at the Test-match stadium. However, in a country
whose less than rabid interest in the game was mirrored by the
morning newspaper - no mention of three Test matches being
played around the world, but a useful guide to the Scottish
Second Division football results - they already find themselves
on the back foot.

Comfortably the worst aspect of their cricket yesterday was the
bowling. Philip Tufnell was treated as near to contemptuously as
makes no difference, and Andrew Caddick, possibly feeling the
after-effects of his viral infection, ran in as though he was
head on into a gale.

Tufnell was hit for four sixes by the trainee accountant, Dannie
Erasmus, who was possibly the only person on the ground not in
need of a pocket calculator to tot up England's collection of
wides and long hops. Caddick also bowled the final ball of the
match, which Craig Evans hit so far out the ground it was last
seen bouncing towards Harare High Street.

If England did have any excuses, it was uncomfortably hot, and
they were put in to bat on a pitch which turned out to be pretty
lively in the first hour. In that time, Eddo Brandes, nowadays a
slimmer version of the tubby chicken farmer who bowled England
to defeat in their first ever one-day international against
Zimbabwe in the 1991 World Cup, had reduced them to 24 for three
with a spell of three for five in 13 deliveries.

Nick Knight top-edged a pull to midwicket, and Michael Atherton,
having survived a concerted appeal for a catch behind to the
first ball he faced, spooned the next one to the same fielder.
Graham Thorpe, driving, was bowled through the gate, and
England's urgent need for retrenchment meant that they were
unable to pick up the scoring rate until late in the innings.

Alec Stewart and Nasser Hussain put on 133 for the fourth wicket
in 33 overs, with Stewart going on to make 105 off 156 balls.
Stewart, strangely, has only ever made one one-day international
century, but he rarely fails to fill his boots in this type of
game. If only more of England's players shared his ability to
rise to the small occasion.

England would have been in a hopeless position without him, but
it soon became clear that defending 211 was not going to be very
easy with only two bowlers. Alan Mullally and Robert Croft (as
they did together with the rested Darren Gough in Saturday's
game) bowled well, but Caddick and Tufnell took such a caning
that Atherton even whistled up Thorpe for a couple of overs.

Thorpe, however, only succeeded in mounting a serious challenge
to pip Caddick in the competition to bowl the most wides.
Caddick sent down nine of England's 16, and the only other type
of delivery he managed to purvey with any kind of consistency
was the long half-volley outside off-stump.

The crowd, made up almost entirely of whites, enjoyed it all
immensely, and gave England's bowlers some good-natured stick
from a quaint, thatch-roofed bar at one end of the ground. The
'Barmy Army' have yet to get here, but they perhaps ought to
know that a pitch incursion from a single semi-clad streaker
prompted a baton charge from something like 50 helmeted security
guards.

David Lloyd, the England coach, said afterwards that he was not
over-concerned by the performance, as his players had "not
batted or bowled in any serious way since the end of the
summer". As far as most of them are concerned, they still
haven't.

Source :: Electronic Telegraph (http://www.telegraph.co.uk)

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