Anybody remember Gary Brent? Last season a Test player, this season unable to win a place in the Zimbabwe Board XI, and seemingly ignored by the selectors. He did suffer a temporary decline in form, but is now producing the goods again - and is still forgotten by the selectors. He was the top wicket-taker in the recent Logan Cup match, playing for Manicaland against Mashonaland. He talks to CricInfo about that match, and about his last year.

The tour of England was not a bad tour for me. Obviously I did not do as well as I had hoped, and I was very disappointed not to play in the one-day final against England. I learnt a lot, and my batting has definitely come along. I did quite a lot of work on it over there and I'm still working on it now. Hopefully in the next couple of weeks we'll see the fruit of that.

Playing at The Oval was the biggest thrill for me, and it was fantastic getting on to the field at Lord's, even if it was just as twelfth man. I'd have loved to play in the Test matches, but I didn't.

Since then I don't know what the story is. I don't think I had that bad a tour of England, and from being on a Test tour to a situation where I can't get into the B side has been very disheartening and a very low point in my career. Hopefully, though, things have started to come right and hopefully I'll start getting selected again sometime.

I did lose a bit of form at the start of the season, but with all the national guys away I was in a bit of a mind-set. I thought I had to get wickets as opposed to my normal role, which is just to keep the runs down. I was captain of Old Hararians as well, which I don't think helped my game. Since then I've thrown in the towel with the captaincy, having lost all six games that I captained! So I didn't have a good start, but a Test tour to absolutely nothing is quite a step down. I went through quite a personal crisis there.

Things started coming right again for me just before Christmas, when I started bowling well again, starting getting my head round, which is what I needed to do. I think I've been batting all right throughout the season, although I haven't any real scores to show for it. I've been getting out in the twenties or thirties, which I shouldn't have done. Then just before Christmas I got a four-fer and a three-fer, and ever since then my bowling has gone from strength to strength. I'm using a new grip which has helped tremendously.

I've been playing for Manicaland these last two seasons but I have actually always lived in Harare. I was meant to be posted out to Mutare from the Academy, but I had personal reasons to stay in the Harare, and the ZCU agreed to let me stay here. But I've still played for Manicaland in the Logan Cup, which has been good for me, because I don't think I'd have bowled as many overs or batted as much as I do in the Mashonaland teams - if I had been selected for them which is very doubtful these days!

Match scores: MANICALAND 205 (Stuart Matsikenyeri 70) and 114 (Bryan Strang 4/29). MASHONALAND 205 (Craig Evans 78; Gary Brent 3/46, Mark Burmester 3/32) and 115/8 (Gary Brent 5/44). Mashonaland won by two wickets.

The pitch for the match, on the second square at Harare Sports Club, was very up and down. There's a ridge - it was slightly corrugated actually, as there were bits with grass and bits without grass all along the pitch. One ball could fly past a batsman's head - I bowled one ball to Grant Flower that nearly killed him. It flew off a length and went over the keeper. It wasn't really a good cricket wicket. A batsman could get runs if he grafted hard enough, but as a bowler if you put the balls in the right place often enough you were going to get wickets.

In our first innings Stuart Matsikenyeri batted really well for his 70. Mashonaland set attacking fields, which allowed us to take runs quite easily. We are a very underrated side, but we have a lot of team spirit, as we showed in both innings. When Mashonaland batted we had Craig Evans dropped off a very easy catch, which could have changed the match if we could have got him out for 30-odd. We could have got them chasing 140 or 150 in the second innings and could easily have won that game.

Mashonaland must have gone back and thought about their game, and I thought they bowled really well in their second innings. Then we came out when they needed 115 to win, and I do think they were overconfident. They had eight Test players in their side, and to come up against them was a huge thing. Nearly to pull off a win was great. We got a couple of quite easy wickets - maybe Andy Flower and Alistair Campbell, out through poor choice of stroke rather than really good balls. [Both fell to Gary, for 0 and 6 respectively!]

I definitely think we came out of that game more positively than they did, although we still lost it. I think we should have lost by a much greater margin. We had them 68 for seven in the final innings at one stage, but we dropped catches again and that made the difference between the two sides. We dropped a lot of catches, crucial ones at important times, and they only dropped one or two.

Paul Strang and Donald Campbell shared a vital partnership of 44, although Donald was dropped. Paul is the perfect player to have in a situation like that, as he's so experienced, a really hard runner between wickets and difficult to bowl to as well. We had Donald dropped at first slip, a hard catch to be sure, but you don't expect easy catches in this game. It was off Mark Burmester, who I thought bowled fantastically well. He deserves a lot of praise because he's not getting any younger, and he took the bull by the horns and the attack on his shoulders. He is very aggressive in the field and a lovely guy to have in your side.

Paul and Don obviously decided that they were going to score off anything wayward, and their running between wickets was very good. Grant Flower was out there because Donald was injured and had a runner, so the runs were even quicker. They played drop and run, and we had some very inexperienced fielders, and the batsmen took advantage of that very well. But all credit to our guys who learned a lot from that experience.

I thought Patrick Gada bowled well, but Craig Evans targeted him, to hit him out of the attack, and he succeeded. Jason Young unfortunately got only one wicket, but he bowled better than that; he's still quite young and has a lot to learn, but will come out of that well. The young Andre Soma got his first first-class wicket this weekend and I was very chuffed for him. He seems to swing the ball quite a bit and it will be interesting to watch him in the next couple of years.

I think the main strength of our Manicaland side is our team spirit. We have a lot of fight in the camp and Mark Burmester is the main guy. He has a lot of courage and we all enjoy playing under him. He gets the boys going really well. We have a very young side, the youngest in the competition apart from the Academy, but we have 16- and 17-year-olds in our side. We all get on very well together. We believe in ourselves and have a lot of fight.

We dropped catches that should have been caught and I think we would definitely have won this game if we had taken those chances. But you can't make excuses; it's something we have to work on. Our big problem is our inexperience, but in a couple of years' time we'll be very much a force to be reckoned with.

Neil Ferreira has not had a very good season so far, but he had a fantastic season last year. He's always a rock-solid performer. Patrick Gada seems to be having a very good season. He made some runs last weekend and some this weekend as well. Richie Sims is a lovely batsman to watch, a good all-round batsman. Stuart Matsikenyeri looks a fantastic prospect for the future. He's very young but he has all the shots.

We have a young leg-spinner in Terry Denyer, who tries hard, which is lovely to see. He didn't bowl much this game, but I don't think the pitch really suited his sort of bowling. He's more of a skidder than a big turner, but we'll definitely be seeing more of him.

For Mashonaland, Craig Evans totally changed the game. We were right on top of them in both innings, and he came in and reversed the pressure. He took the attack to us and hit us hard and far. Other than that, none of their other batsmen had a particularly good game, but I thought their bowlers bowled very well in the second innings, much better than they did in the first innings.

As for myself, I hope I can get back in the national side! It's been a long time since I had any major form of competitive cricket and the Logan Cup has been my first for months. The standard of the national league was very poor, with the national guys and the B side players all away.

I do hope one day the selectors will talk to the players and tell us what is going on, because this is our career. We need to get spoken to. The lack of communication has been a problem for years. I'm trying to further my career, and when you don't get told anything, what are you to do? You don't know what you've been dropped for, or why, and it's no wonder some players leave through discouragement when this sort of thing happens.

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