Zimbabwe have bad memories of last test

FOR Hamilton Masakadza and Brendan Taylor, Zimbabwe’s last test series against Sout Africa, in March 2005, will be too fresh for comfort when the teams clash in a one-off match in Harare on Saturday.

“At the team meeting before the first test at Newlands, I said, ‘Guys, Jacques Kallis is struggling with his inswinger, but he still has the one that goes the other way’,” Masakadza said yesterday.

The next day, Masakadza scratched his way to six off 37 balls. Then he shouldered arms to Kallis and was trapped plumb in front by a pearler of an inswinger.

Taylor survived 10 deliveries for his two, only to follow a wide delivery from Makhaya Ntini and gift Mark Boucher his 300th test dismissal.

“I was still wearing my helmet when I walked back into the dressingroom, and I hit myself so hard on the head with my bat that I was almost knocked out,” Taylor said.

By then, Ntini had already bowled Dion Ebrahim to reach 200 test wickets.

And so on and so forth. It took SA 31.2 overs and not much more than the first session of the match to dismiss Zimbabwe for 54, then their lowest ever total.

Barely 24 hours later, the game ended in victory for SA by an innings and 21 runs.

Nine years on, some things have changed and others not. SA have bid farewell to Kallis, Boucher and Graeme Smith.

The only Zimbabwe survivors from the Newlands nightmare are Masakadza, Taylor and Elton Chigumbura.

SA, who were then ranked fifth, have earned and re-earned the No 1 test ranking. Zimbabwe were second from bottom. They still are.

After losing the second match of that series by an innings and 62 runs at Centurion, Zimbabwe played four more tests – losing all them by an innings – before suspending themselves from the format. The player walkout sparked by Heath Streak’s mysterious removal as captain had taken its toll.

Zimbabwe were out of test action from September 2005 to August 2011. In that time, SA played 55 tests. Since their return, Zimbabwe have played 10 tests. SA? Twenty-eight. In January 2012, New Zealand lowered Zimbabwe’s lowest total to 51.

But captain Hashim Amla would have no talk of triumph yesterday. “Whether you’re playing Australia or Zimbabwe, the pressure to win is always there. We are here to play our best brand of cricket.”

If that happens, SA could spend what would have been the last three days of the match fishing at Kariba.