There seems to have been a mix-up with the fixture list in southern Africa. It is surely England who should be in South Africa with the big boys, and Kenya who should be in Harare for the battle of the basement. Even then, the Zims might struggle to come out of their slump. It's quite an achievement to be walloped by England's one-day team in 2001, but Zimbabwe managed it today with ease. After Alistair Campbell had given them a fighting start, the middle order sank like the Zimbabwean economy. Dirk Viljoen gave them a glimmer of hope with a late flurry (even lemmings have a tail), but Heath Streak himself extinguished it again with a soggy opening spell. Lately both Steve Waugh and Sachin Tendulkar have made international hundreds when desperately short of match practice, but it's different for bowlers - and mortals.

Zimbabwe were so enfeebled that it is hard to say how good England were. But James Kirtley came through his personal test, Matthew Hoggard recovered from a poor start to bowl the ball of the day and become possibly the first qualified vet ever to win a Man of the Match award, and the team as a whole maintained their upward curve by firming up the areas that had been floppy on Wednesday.

The fielding belatedly bore out Nasser Hussain's assertion that he now has so many good fielders, he doesn't know where to put them. He himself was outstanding, along with Nick Knight and Andy Flintoff, and he had the right men in the deep when the Zims decided to offer mass catching practice.

Flintoff and Ben Hollioake, perhaps sensing that they wouldn't get a bat, both tightened up their bowling. Hollioake delivered more slower balls than normal ones and landed them on the spot, metamorphosing from spendthrift youngster to wily old pro in the space of three days. He took the big wicket of Campbell and even bowled a maiden over, something he had previously achieved only in tabloid picture-captions in 1997.

Marcus Trescothick blasted his way out of a bad patch with a Jayasuriya of a cameo. The old sweats in the commentary box duly banged on about hundreds - despite the evidence of Johannesburg last night, when the team that made two individual centuries was comfortably defeated by the team that only had one - but Trescothick knew that a quick-fire 40 would be enough. And he wanted to watch the football. It was that sort of day.

Tim de Lisle is editor of Wisden.com.

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Verdict: 1st ODI, Harare

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