Tomorrow sees the start of a biblical encounter at Harare Sports Club as Zimbabwe take on South Africa, with David having suffered serious reverses in the artillery department that enabled him to win his original battle three thousand years ago.

Zimbabwe are severely handicapped by the loss of Heath Streak's three leading pace-bowling assistants during the winter series: Brighton Watambwa, Andy Blignaut and Bryan Strang. True, South Africa have lost Allan Donald, but they were preparing for life without him anyway. The treadmill of modern cricket is wearing down players, especially pace bowlers. Zimbabwe players have had only the months of May and August free from international cricket in the past year – even then they were in training for the next series - and it is a source of relief that Heath Streak's suspect knee has not yet seriously rebelled against the pressure.

The selectors could have brought together, instead, the trio of pacemen that brought Zimbabwe successive Test victories against India and Pakistan three years ago. Streak and Henry Olonga opened the bowling with fire, while Pommie Mbangwa tied up the batsmen superbly while they rested. Had any one of these three been missing on those two occasions, Zimbabwe would almost certainly not have won.

Olonga was in the squad and reported fit, but he has not played much cricket for several months and was not at his best. Mbangwa was not in the squad; selectorial policy during the last year, though, has been to prefer pace and the potential to bowl wicket-taking deliveries to accuracy, and Mbangwa appears to have fallen badly out of favour without doing much wrong. Gary Brent is another medium-pacer who served the country well in the past but has seemingly been forgotten. Preference was given to the greater pace of Travis Friend, while Doug Hondo is set to make his Test debut. Last season Hondo took eight wickets at 40 each in five first-class matches, and will be under pressure to prove that he merits a place.

The batsmen are all fit – at the time of writing – with Andy Flower's hand having made good progress without being completely right; he is such a valuable player, though, that he was always certain to play barring accidents. Tatenda Taibu was in the squad, however, were it to be decided that Flower could not keep wicket.

For once the selectors had a problem in which of their batsmen to leave out. Of the first six in the order, Alistair Campbell, the two Flowers and Guy Whittall are long-established players and permanent fixtures when fit. Hamilton Masakadza could hardly be dropped after his debut century against West Indies. That left room for two out of Dion Ebrahim, who has been opening with Campbell in recent Tests, Stuart Carlisle, returned from injury, and Craig Wishart, who showed the best form of the three during the winter. Carlisle, a fixture throughout last year and the man whose fighting innings won that crucial Second Test against India, was the man genuinely unfortunate to be left out. Had he not broken his finger in the field against West Indies, Masakadza would not have been given a chance.

If the pitch is prepared to suit the home side, it will probably be pretty flat with any intentional help to be given to the spinners rather than the pacemen. Memories are still fresh of that disaster two years ago when the pitch was watered too much overnight, giving an inordinate advantage to the team that won the toss. In such situations, as Napoleon observed, God is on the side of the big battalions, and the South African pacemen enjoyed an early Christmas. Zimbabwe have only one specialist spin bowler in their squad, though, with Raymond Price selected instead of leg-spinners Brian Murphy, still not fully fit from his ankle injury, and Paul Strang.

Little need be said of the South African team, except that their ability to steamroll weaker sides has never been in doubt. But we need no computer analyst to find a pattern in each of Zimbabwe's last five Test series (two matches each), since April last year, excluding that against newcomers Bangladesh. In the first match of all five series, Zimbabwe have lost, mainly due to poor batting, with seven wickets being the smallest margin of defeat. Then, in the Second Test, they have fought back strongly, defeating India, drawing three times, and only New Zealand have been able to force home a second victory.

The players will have to guard against a repetition of that pattern against South Africa. It will not be easy to do better, as they are a stronger team than any of the others Zimbabwe have played in the last 18 months. They would appear to have no hope of victory – but that was what everybody said before that famous World Cup match of 1999 at Chelmsford.

Both teams are perhaps less well-prepared than they would have liked, although Zimbabwe have been in training for the past three weeks. With Carl Rackemann in Australia, former national coach Dave Houghton has been in charge of the cricketing side. Captain Heath Streak said that they had a good practice match last week and had been working hard in the nets.

Zimbabwe are very respectful of South Africa, he said, adding: "But I believe that if we can put together a team effort we certainly have a chance to give them a scare and win a game." It will always be unlikely, and Zimbabwe's best chance is if the South Africans become subconsciously overconfident. But if the Zimbabweans all play to their potential they have the ability to give any team in the world a tough game.

South Africa has traditionally been the team Zimbabweans have supported over the years, apart from their own. This stems from the years, prior to independence in 1980, when Rhodesian cricket, as it was then, was part of the South African Currie Cup – as it was then! Players from this country, like Colin Bland, John Traicos and Jack du Preez – now the only former Rhodesian and South African player still living in Zimbabwe – played Test cricket for South Africa.

That is no longer the case, for a variety of reasons. Despite the proximity of the two countries, there is a widespread feeling that South Africa have not supported Zimbabwean cricket as well as they should have. Tomorrow's match will be only the fourth Test between the two countries – of the senior Test-playing countries, only Australia have played Zimbabwe less frequently. In one-day cricket, South Africa stand at the bottom of the list among Zimbabwe's more senior Test-playing opponents, with a mere 12 meetings between the sides.

While the Zimbabwe Board XI participates in the UCBSA Bowl competition, promotion to the SuperSport series has been denied again, although at least they have been accepted for the one-day provincial series next season. And although South Africa are very keen for touring teams to play against their development sides, they did not want to play any warm-up matches against young Zimbabwean players.

Another factor is the perceived arrogance of many of the South African players. Several Zimbabweans have commented on how difficult it is to get to know them off the field of play, in contrast to the Australians, who are always friendly off the field, however much they may try to kill them on it. Andy Flower feels he made a little progress towards improving relationships between the teams during his recent term as captain, but there is clearly much work to be done.

So Zimbabwe will be especially keen to come out from under the shadow of their powerful southern neighbour and at least earn more respect for their deeds on the field. The matches should be well supported by the public, and perhaps the South Africans may yet win back some of the affection they have lost in Zimbabwe in recent years.

There has been talk in certain quarters of cancelling tours to Zimbabwe in view of the political state of the country, but this would only hurt the cricketing community without affecting those causing the crisis. There has also been concern about the safety of the players, but this is needless, as they will not be visiting any parts of the country where they could be endangered. Despite the background, there is every reason to expect that this tour will take place as peacefully as every other tour to the country and that the South Africans will enjoy their stay – but Zimbabweans hope not too much on the field of play.

Zimbabwe team for the First Test: Alistair Campbell, Dion Ebrahim, Hamilton Masakadza, Craig Wishart, +Andy Flower, Grant Flower, Guy Whittall, *Heath Streak, Travis Friend, Raymond Price, Douglas Hondo.

© CricInfo Ltd.