da dobrowin： Zimbabwe’s captain, Heath Streak, will play against Sussexin the four-day tour match which starts at Hove tomorrow, after recoveringfrom a back injury that dogged him throughout last week’s game againstWorcestershire
John Ward14-May-2003Zimbabwe’s captain, Heath Streak, will play against Sussexin the four-day tour match which starts at Hove tomorrow, after recoveringfrom a back injury that dogged him throughout last week’s game againstWorcestershire. Geoff Marsh, Zimbabwe’s coach, said that Streak wasespecially keen to play, given that this was the final warm-up match beforethe first Test, which starts at Lord’s next Thursday.With the exception of Douglas Hondo, who is being rested,Zimbabwe’s team is likely to be the Test side. Hondo’s replacement, MlulekiNkala, is playing his first match of the tour and is an outside bet forLord’s. Barney Rogers and Travis Friend also drop out of the side thatplayed in Worcester, with the allrounders Sean Ervine and Douglas Marilliertaking their places.At first glance, the team looks very short of specialistbatsmen, but their strength is in their allrounders. Raymond Price is theonly man not to have scored a century at first-class level, but even he hasseveral fifties to his name. The allrounders, in fact, have often donebetter than the specialist batsmen, and as Worcestershire discovered, thisteam cannot be counted out until the tenth wicket falls.Streak will probably nurse himself with the ball to ensurehe has no fitness problems before the Test, leaving most of the seam bowlingto Andy Blignaut, Sean Ervine and Nkala. Nkala was in such woeful form afew months ago that he was omitted from the World Cup squad, but hasimproved since then and will be keen to impress. Price will expect plenty ofwork with his left-arm spin, but Marillier’s offspin and Grant Flower’s slowleft-arm will probably also be used.Marsh believed the tie against Worcestershire had done the team a lot of good. “There was a lot of intensity and real pressure outthere,” he said. “Some practice games fade out and have little value, butthe pressure was on the team the whole time [at Worcester]. I think wedominated the match on the whole, although the result doesn’t show that. Itwas a good warm-up game.”Sussex, ironically, will be captained by former Zimbabweanbatsman, Murray Goodwin, who scored a magnificent 148 not out at TrentBridge in 2000 in Zimbabwe’s last Test against England. As is sadly thecase these days, Sussex will not be fielding a full-strength side,although they themselves could do with a boost after their heavy defeat byWarwickshire over the weekend. For Zimbabwe, there is little doubt thattheir main aim will be a morale-boosting win on the eve of the Lord’s Test.Zimbabwe 1 Dion Ebrahim, 2 Mark Vermeulen, 3 Stuart Carlisle, 4 GrantFlower, 5 Tatenda Taibu (wk), 6 Sean Ervine, 7 Douglas Marillier, 8 HeathStreak (capt), 9 Andy Blignaut, 10 Mluleki Nkala, 11 Raymond Price.